Mike Teavee
by x.Sess.x.Satan.x
Summary: Mike has never wanted a girlfriend, and never will. He's always felt like that. Until he visits a certain chocolate factory...
1. Before the Factory: Claire

**Disclaimer: **I don't own Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, or any of its characters. They remain the property of Tim Burton and Warner Bros. I also don't own the songs; they belong to Roald Dahl (RIP) and Danny Elfman.

**Author's note: **My first CATCF fic, based on the 2005 movie. Mike is my favourite character from the book and the film (ask anyone who knows me!) and there aren't many Mike fics out there, so I thought I'd write his first 'full-length feature' one. R&R please!

**1**

"Hi, Mike!" Claire said airily as she made her way to French. Mike glanced at her, half-smiled and walked on.  
"What did you do that for?" Daniel asked as he nudged Mike in the side. Mike shook him off in annoyance, averting his eyes in the opposite direction. "She clearly likes you! She's been talking to you in…in that _way_ that girls do."  
"Yeah, because _you'd_ know," Mike said sarcastically, "Why don't you just get lost?"  
Daniel made pleading, puppy-dog eyes, "Because I'm your friend."  
"Only by a series of bizarre and unfortunate coincidences."  
Daniel looked blank; Mike sighed, "Never mind."  
"You know, uh," Daniel said after a few minutes silence, "The school dance is coming up."  
"How incredibly observant of you."  
"Well, you're dateless at the moment-"  
"So are you!" Mike interrupted – he hated being reminded that he'd never had a girlfriend, despite not particularly wanting one.  
"I was just wondering if you would…y'know…ask a certain girl whose name begins with 'C'…"  
Mike shot yet another withering look, "Your futility confounds me."  
"Thanks!"  
Mike shook his head and pushed open the door for Science. He took up his usual seat in the middle of the room, and Daniel took up his, right next to him. Mike automatically got out his notepad and a pencil and started doodling, not bothering to stop when Ms Endres stalked into the room. The class descended into a silence, interrupted only by Ms Endres telling them that they were about to study electromagnets and the occasional whisper, one of which was Daniel's. He leaned over to Mike and hissed, "I know you like her."  
"Who? Ms Endres? Please tell me this is your idea of a joke."  
"No! Claire!"  
"Who?" Mike feigned ignorance, "Oh, _Claire_. No, not really. I mean, she's not _un_attractive, but…"  
"Oh, go on!" Daniel pleaded, "She's going to call you anyway, you might as well at least _talk _to her."  
Mike scoffed, "How can she call me? She doesn't have my number, you fool."  
Daniel looked down at his book, pushed his glasses a little further up his nose and gulped. Mike looked over at him.  
"You gave her my number?"  
"I thought you'd wanna talk to her!"  
"I can't believe how stupid you are!"  
"Boys!" Ms Endres barked, "Please settle down."  
Daniel sat upright and started making notes of everything Ms Endres told them about polar attraction. Mike sighed and went back to his doodling; he knew everything there was to know about magnets, anyway.

As he sketched faint lines with his pencil, Mike's mind wandered in the direction of girls, Claire in particular. What if Daniel had been right? What if Claire did like him? Did that mean his acerbic, repellant attitude hadn't worked? He'd always tried so hard to be a loner, like a wolf. Someone who needs no one. Although, there was Daniel. And his parents, of course, he wouldn't be anything without them. And now Claire. It was all a bit much for Mike to take in. He began printing letters with his pencil, just underneath his sketchings.  
"Michael!" Mike looked up at Ms Endres, "You are not paying attention…yet again!"  
Mike propped his head up with one hand and fidgeted with his pencil with the other, "And?"  
Ms Endres tilted her head to one side, "So you could easily tell me what has the shortest wavelength on the electromagnetic spectrum."  
"Gamma." He said bluntly.  
"OK then, wise-guy," Ms Endres said, clearly flustered at Mike's knowledge, "which waves carry energy?"  
"Radio, micro, x-ray and gamma," he replied, punctuating with a yawn.  
"After school detention for you, Mr Teavee!"  
"What the hell for?"  
"For…for being cheeky. Get on with your work before I give you another one."  
Mike curled his lip and looked down at his notepad. His eyes widened with shock; somehow he had managed to doodle a picture of Claire and written her name underneath without realizing it. He quickly covered it with his arms, but from the look on Daniel's face, it was too late. Mike peeked under his left arm and saw a series of numbers written in Daniel's handwriting followed by the words 'call her'. Mike swallowed; this was way out of his depth.


	2. Before the Factory: Detention

**Author's note: **There has been some confusion over Claire. She is not intended as a 'Mary-Sue' for Mike, she is just a part of Mike's history. This story is gonna be long, and it will eventually make its way to the factory, I promise!

**2**

Mike tapped his pencil on the desk irritably (and irritatingly) as Ms Endres marked the last of the homework.  
"Michael," she snapped, "Get on with the work I've set you. This is a detention, not a way to kill time."  
"Same difference," Mike muttered, reluctantly picking up a pen and filling in the worksheet on electromagnets. Ms Endres cast a steady eye over him for quite some time before getting the bin and bringing it over to her desk. Mike looked on in disgust and confusion as she began rooting through it. She obviously sensed this as she explained, "I'm counting the pieces of gum in here. I take swabs from it, send it off to a lab and give detentions to anyone I find has been chewing the stuff."  
Mike furled his upper lip in distaste, "You don't _really_ do that, do you?"  
"Of course I don't, you foolish child! Do you think I'm made of money?"  
"Then…what _are _you doing?"  
"Seeing if anyone has drawn any cartoons of me. I mean, of any of the teachers. After that exceptionally rude – and crude, might I add – drawing of the headmaster by that Davies boy-" Mike sniggered to himself, "-we are all on constant alert."  
_Man, she's screwy_, Mike thought to himself as he answered the last few questions, "I'm done."  
But Ms Endres didn't look up. She was looking at a screwed up piece of paper. Mike craned his neck, trying to catch a look at what he assumed was a cartoon of one of the teachers. Preferably her.  
"What's that, Ms Endres?" he said, mock-politely.  
She turned the paper round so he could see it. His body shuddered with shock as he saw the sketch of Claire in her spindly fingers.  
"That's not mine," he said quickly, his face prickling with the first signs of a blush.  
"It's signed in your name."  
"That's not me."  
"How many other Mike Teavees are there in this school, for pity's sake?"  
Mike hesitated, "Are you sure that's what it says?"  
Ms Endres squinted at the paper, "It's a little unintelligible, but it is definitely your name."  
Mike worked his mouth wordlessly; Ms Endres smirked.  
"So," she said in a sing-song voice, "You like Claire, do you?"  
He cleared his throat and squeaked, "No. N-not particularly."  
"So, what's this?" she asked, holding up the portrait, "Are you making her passport picture for her?"

"Ms Endres?" a voice came from the door. She and Mike turned to face Claire. Mike grabbed the paper from his teacher and screwed it up tight.  
"What is it, Miss Hockley?" Ms Endres said to Claire.  
"Uh…the headmaster sent for you. You have a phone call waiting."  
"Who is it? Did he say?"  
"No, sorry. But it sounded urgent."  
Ms Endres sighed, "Right. Can I trust you here on your own, Mr Teavee?"  
"I guess," Mike murmured.  
Ms Endres strutted out of the room. Claire smiled sweetly at her and watched her go down the corridor and turn a corner. Making sure she was completely gone, she rushed over to Mike and whispered urgently, "Go!"  
Mike straightened up, "What?"  
"Go! Before she finds out there's no one for her on the phone!"  
Mike collected up his belongings and shoved them in his bag as he garbled, "Whaddya mean there's no one on the phone?"  
"I made it up! Now go!"  
"Why did you do that?"  
Claire bustled him to the door hissing, "Gets you out of detention, doesn't it? Will you just go?"  
Mike dithered for a while but eventually turned and headed down the corridor. He stopped as he realised Claire wasn't following him.  
"Aren't you coming?" he asked.  
"Well, one of us has to stay behind!"  
"What the hell for?"  
"To explain…? I don't know!"  
Ms Endres' shoes made menacing slapping sounds as she came nearer.  
"Come on!" Mike said insistently as he grabbed Claire's wrist and pulled her along. They heard Ms Endres give a frustrated sigh as they bolted out of the front door. They stopped a street down to catch their breath. Claire started giggling, "That felt quite good!"  
Mike just looked at her, "Why did you do that for me?"  
Claire shrugged a little, "I'm not sure. I guess I just didn't like the thought of you – I mean, of _anyone_ – trapped in that classroom after school hours with that stroppy bitch."  
Mike mumbled an agreement. He suddenly felt extremely awkward around Claire.  
"I'd better go," she said, waking Mike from his trance, "It's getting late."  
Mike nodded.

Claire smiled slightly, turned and walked away. After a while she stopped and turned back round, "One more thing. Do…do you have a date for the dance?"  
Shocked, Mike stiffly shook his head.  
"Oh, well then, maybe I'll call you sometime."  
Mike managed to force some sound out of his mouth, hoping it was an 'I-have-heard-and-accepted-your-statement' sound. Obviously it wasn't an 'are-you-crazy?' sound, as she gave him a little wave and set off again. Mike fidgeted with the hem of his shirt like he always did when he was nervous or anxious. He didn't want a girlfriend! He didn't want to even go to this damned dance, let alone have a date! Maybe he could be friends with her…but anything more than that was strictly off the cards. For now.


	3. Before the Factory: A competition

**Author's note: **OK, we're getting nearer the factory, now. Shorter than the chapters up until now, but I'll be starting school again soon and I want to get as much posted as possible before the workload starts to mount up. Thank you to all you beautiful reviewers!

**3**

"Oh, look, dear," Mr Teavee said to his wife over the trills and blasts of Mike's video game, "Willa Wonka is opening up his factory for a day."  
"Good for him," Mike interrupted. Mr Teavee cleared his throat and rustled his paper nervously before continuing.  
"Five Wonka bars contain Golden Tickets which allow five children access for the day, including a guided tour from Willy Wonka himself."  
Mike yawned pointedly and flipped off his game.  
"Oh, did you lose, dear?" his mother asked politely. Mike raised an eyebrow which told his mother he certainly did not lose.  
"I need more challenging games. Any idiot can override the Magmax code and convert in into binary so you can use the Ring of Invisibility and the Morphing Potion at the same time."  
He picked up the remote control and put on the TV.  
"A cure for the common cold may have been found," a newsreader announced blandly, "A research scientist in Michigan has discovered a particular type of white blood cell contains a chemical which can adapt to the virus, thus able to combat all variations of colds and influenza."  
"I coulda told you that," Mike muttered.  
"Tell us more about the Wonka competition, dear." Mrs Teavee said to Mr Teavee.  
"Well, the first two tickets have been found by, uh," he checked the paper, "Augustus Gloop and Veruca Salt. Apparently they are both very excited about the visit," he raised his voice as Mike hit the 'volume' button on the TV, "and hope to win the big, mystery prize at the end of the tour."  
Mike shook his head – honestly, some people just didn't have lives. He rubbed his sore, dark eyes as he squinted at the television.  
"In recent news," the newsreader continued, "the third Golden Ticket has been found by Miss Violet Beauregard."  
Mike groaned and went to put his game back on.  
"Oh, could we watch this, honey?" his mother asked, knowing it was a long shot. Mike sighed heavily, more than implying his annoyance, but left it on anyway. As he watched, he formed a plan in his mind. It was pretty simple mathematics, he reckoned, to take all the factors together, pull them around a bit, and find one of the tickets. But he wouldn't even though he knew could, because all chocolate tasted the same: foul.  
"Of course," a young, female voice came from the TV, "Finding the ticket wasn't really anything to do with my superb winning streak – although I'm sure it did help – it was just luck."  
Mike snapped his head up to look at the cheery-faced, blue-suited, gum-chewing Violet Beauregard on the screen. _Luck?_ He thought incredulously, _Luck? These kids are clearly stupid. This tour needs someone with an IQ larger than a flea's._ He got up and went to the computer in his room. He typed 'Wonka's chocolate' into a search engine, vaguely amused by the fact that it was the first and last time he would ever have to do so. After doing a bit of research, he raked through hundreds of sites which went on about the competition and the previous three winners until he finally got to a site which sold the stuff. He sent a request stating _exactly_ what he wanted (the third Wonka bar from the left on the top shelf of Minty's Candy Store in Bloomington, Illinois) along with a few threats. After giving the credit card details his dad had given up long ago, he sat back contentedly in his chair knowing that, in a few short hours, he would be either the fourth or fifth Golden Ticket winner.


	4. Before the Factory: Teavee on TV

**Author's note: **Curse writer's block…

**HoT tOpIc: **Glad you like it. And thank you for putting it in your favourites!  
**Jokestress Lamine: **Glad you like it, too! Mike Teavee DOES rock! As for Daniel and Claire…I ain't saying just yet…  
**Sunrise over the Tango Factory: **Well, well, well, look who it is! Cheers for your reviews, Bex! And no need to apologise for crap reviews…I've come to expect them from you :P  
**boogle: **Ooh, another groupie, lol. I seem to be drawing the 'Red Dwarf' crowd. Anyway, thanks for the review, hun!  
**soccerstar8281: **Glad you like it. And as for updating soon…well, I just did.  
**Bordest Person alive: **Thank you :)  
**Randomguitaristetc: **:P Shut up, Helen! I know you think Mike should be burned, there's no need to tell me in a review. Hehe. Luv ya really, darlin'!  
**miyuyux33: **I sent you an email. You can see my reply on that :)  
**Wonkasgrl12: **Thank you! I will :D  
**MikexViolet 4eva: **To be honest, I think it's quite saddening that you only read MikexViolet fics without giving others a chance. It will eventually be MikexViolet, and also MikexVeruca. For the record, I don't think there was any need to sound quite so threatening. Thanks, anyway.  
**Leesy Metallium: **Heh! I love every bit of him, not just his face! Thanks for the wonderful review:)  
**ZK: **ANOTHER Dwarfer! Thanks for your…er…constructive critiscism? Next time, gimme a bit more than 'write what you're gonna'. K? Luv ya! X  
**pohatufan1: **Sorry that I made you giddy! Glad your enjoying the fic, and I hope you will continue to R&R!

**4**

Claire fidgeted with the small slip of paper. Daniel's handwriting was damn near impossible to read, but she thought she could just about make out Mike's number. She wouldn't normally have been up this early – nine o clock Saturday morning was a fairly new experience for her – but when she had woken up she found she couldn't get back to sleep again. She picked up the phone, but immediately slammed it down again.  
_This is stupid! _She told herself, _Mike's a known bully, he's self-centred, and he's egotistical. As cute as he is, there isn't a chance in hell he's actually going to go to the dance with you.  
_Claire poured herself an orange juice and settled into her homework. For five minutes she worked well, but then her mind started to wander back towards Mike. _So what if he's self-centred?_ She asked herself, _People change, sometimes. And, like you said yourself, he's cute!  
_She picked up the phone again and toyed with it in her hands. Maybe he wouldn't be up yet. After all, even _she_ had only been up for a few minutes. She reluctantly put the phone back down again.Having finished her homework, she picked up the remote and turned on the TV. She got the fright of her life when there, clear as daylight, Mike was on the screen being interviewed.  
"All I had to do," the on-screen Mike said, looking extremely bored, "was track the manufacturing dates, offset by weather and the derivative of the Nikkei index. A _retard_ could figure it out."  
As his dad spoke more gently to the reporters, Claire shook her head slowly. This was beyond belief. It wasn't so much that Mike had actually won the fourth Golden Ticket that confounded Claire, it was the fact that Mike clearly wasn't bothered; he was sat cross-legged on the floor, deeply involved in a video game, and hadn't even changed out of his pyjamas. She jumped as the screen yelled, "DIE! DIE! DIE!"  
There was a 'ratta-tatta' of machine guns as Mike finished off a level on his game, "In the end, I only had to buy one candy bar."  
"And how did it taste?" one of the reporters asked.  
"I don't know," Mike said, looking incredulous, "I hate chocolate."  
"How do you feel about going to the factory?" another reporter asked. Mike shrugged as the next level of his game started up. One of the cameras moved round to get a better shot of Mike, and accidentally hit the 'off' button on his game.  
"Hey!" Mike shouted indignantly, "You made me lose, idiot!"  
The cameraman mumbled an apology and continued to set up as Mike turned the TV back on and watched a programme that seemed to consist entirely of scantily dressed girls dancing around on podiums. Claire found herself flicking through other channels to see what programme Mike was actually watching, but most of them seemed to be reporting on the fourth Golden Ticket winner. She gave up and watched as Mike read out the instructions on the ticket. She turned off the television half-way through and sighed. She liked Mike a lot, but even she was willing to admit that he didn't really deserve that ticket. Not that anyone would ever question him. They'd get a black eye if they did.

That evening, Claire sat on her bed, tossing the phone from one hand to the other. All day that was all she had been doing. Contemplating. The paper with Mike's number on it was screwed, ripped and tatty; if it had been unintelligible before, it was certainly unreadable now. It didn't matter, though, as Claire had managed to memorise his number from dialling it so many times. She took a deep breath and quickly stabbed numbers on the phone without even thinking. _Don't mention the factory,_ she told herself as the phone rang. Three rings, that was a record for her; normally she would have chickened out by now. Four rings. Five, six, seven. She was starting to get anxious. Eight…nine…  
"Hello?" a voice finally came from the other end.  
"Hello," Claire replied, "Mr Teavee?"  
"Yes, how may I help you?"  
"Could I speak to Mike, please?"  
"Er…" Mr Teavee didn't seem all that keen on that idea, "Who shall I say is calling?"  
"Claire Hockley. I'm a…a friend of Mike's," she lied.  
"OK, I'll just get him," Mr Teavee said. Although he had clearly put his hand over the receiver, Claire could swear she heard him sigh despairingly. After a mumbled conversation, presumably between Mike and his dad, Mr Teavee picked up the receiver again and said, "I'm terribly sorry, Claire. Mike is…busy at the moment."  
"Oh," Claire said, not managing to keep the disappointment out of her voice. There was a short pause then Mr Teavee said, almost determinedly, "I'll get him to call you back."  
"Thank you," she said glumly. The line went dead as Mr Teavee hung up. Claire, however, kept the receiver clamped firmly on her ear. Mike hadn't been busy. The sound of his video games had been clear over the phone. Staring out in front of her, Claire slowly lowered the phone to its base. Almost immediately, it rang; she jumped and knocked it over. Scrambling to pick it up, she had barely put it to her ear when she yelled, "Mike?" down the phone.  
"No," a boy said from the other end. Regaining her composure (and picking herself up from the floor) Claire asked who they were.  
"Will you go to the school dance with me?" the boy said.  
"What?" Claire asked, "I asked who you were!"  
"Will you go to the school dance with me?" the boy repeated.  
"Not until you tell me who you are!" Claire persisted. She shut right up when she found out who it was…

"OK, OK!" Mike shouted at his dad after the seventeenth time of asking if he would call Claire back. He got up, turned off his computer and brushed past him, adding, "Jeez!"  
He'd had a good, long time to think about it, and Mike had decided that he would take Claire to the dance. If anything, it was a new experience, and if he didn't like it, he could always go back to hating everything in sight. He picked up the phone and got Claire's number (which had been ripped off the bottom of the portrait) out from his pocket. He dialled and waited.  
"Hello?" Claire said.  
Hearing her voice again settled Mike down a bit, "Hi, it's Mike."  
"Oh," she sounded quite aggravated, "Hi."  
"Uh…" he hesitated; _what am I supposed to say now? _"D-dad said you called earlier."  
_Nice save, Mike!  
_"Yes. But you were busy," Claire said, putting extra emphasis on 'busy'. Mike winced. He'd only said that so he could avoid talking to her.  
"Uh, yeah, sorry. Unavoidable," he added.  
"Oh, were you about to lose a life?" she asked irritably.  
"What?"  
"Nothing. Look," she changed the subject, "I called before to see if you wanted to go to the dance with me."  
"I see. Well-"  
Mike was about to say that he would, but Claire interrupted him.  
"But then you were, uh…_busy_…"  
Mike cleared his throat nervously, "Right…"  
"Then I got another call. A date request, to be exact. And seeing as you were taking your sweet time, I said yes."  
"What?" Mike asked, "Who was it?"  
"So you'll have to find someone else."  
"Who was it?" Mike persisted. He could tell Claire was smiling, even though he couldn't see her.  
"Fourth Golden Ticket winner, huh?" she said slowly, "What's with that? I thought you didn't like chocolate."  
"I don't," Mike said bluntly, not quite sure how the conversation had ended up going in that particular direction.  
"Then…why?"  
Mike paused, trying to think of a plausible explanation; 'I did it for my ego' just didn't have a good ring to it.  
"I don't really know," he said after the pause became unbearable, although it was a lie, "I just, sort of…came across it."  
"Came across it?" Claire asked incredulously, "You said you only bought one candy bar."  
"Yeah," he replied, "And it just so happened to have the ticket in it."  
_Please be buying this,_ he said desperately to himself, _PLEASE be buying this!  
_"There's something I'm missing, here. None of this makes any sense. I really don't understand why you would get, and keep, a Golden Ticket when you hate choc-…oh," she seemed to suddenly realise something, "I get it."  
There was another excruciating pause before Mike said, "So, who was this guy, anyway?"  
"Don't try to change the subject."  
"You changed it first!"  
Yet _another _pause. Mike was getting quite annoyed.  
"See you at school, Mike," were the last words Claire said to him before slamming the phone down. She didn't sound happy.

**Author's note: **You'll have to wait for a few chapters until you find out who Claire's going with...sorry! If ANYONE tries to ask me who it is I'll...I'll...poke my tongue out at you. So you better be careful!


	5. At the Factory: Meeting at the Gates

**Author's note: **Yes, we're finally at the factory.

**ZK: **I'm not telling you :P  
**Sunrise over the Tango Factory: **Excuse me? YOUR boy? Back off, missy!  
**boogle: **OK, OK, you're not a groupie! Sheesh…Thanks for review. But… :P I warned you! I warned you all!

**5**

Mike stood outside the gates of the factory, his dad to his left, some weird woman who looked possessed to his right. He shuffled across to get away from the possessed lady, but he only managed to form a small mound of snow by his foot. He glanced down the line and saw, standing next to her, a kid who could easily have been her clone (they were even wearing matching tracksuits). Possessed Junior, Mike dubbed her. Next to her was a pleasantly plump woman who looked like a reject from a china doll factory, and next to her a not-so-pleasantly plump boy who was clutching a Wonka Candy Bar in his podgy fingers. _Pfft, favouritism, _Mike scoffed to himself, before noticing the chocolate smeared around his mouth. _Oh, _Mike thought, _so he's just greedy._ Next was a frail old man who looked like he could drop down dead any second, and a little boy who didn't look a heck of a lot better. Mike racked his brains to conjure up a name, but nothing came. Could he be Augustus? No, that name seemed more suited to The Blob. He must be the fifth Golden Ticket winner. Next up was a small girl who looked almost as satanic as Mrs Possessed. She was wearing a skirt in the middle of winter. _Nuts, _Mike thought to himself, _absolutely nuts_.  
She suddenly turned to the man next to her – Posh English Dude – and said firmly, "Daddy, I want to go in."  
"It's nine fifty-nine, sweetheart," he replied.  
"Make time go faster," Satanic Kid demanded. Mike made a mental note not to get on the wrong side of her.  
"Do you think Willy Wonka will recognise you?" asked the fifth Golden Ticket winner. For time's sake, Mike nicknamed him 'Scruffy'.  
"Hard to say," the old guy replied, "It's been years."  
Mike squinted in confusion for a second before a loud crack made him jump – The Blob had just taken a _huge_ bite out of his chocolate bar. Mike tried hard not to throw up as his crunches echoed around.  
"Eyes on the prize, Violet," Mrs Possessed said to her clone, "Eyes on the prize."  
Mike focused all his concentration and energy on staring straight ahead of him; he could hear the reporters around them scribbling down every last thing they were saying, and he didn't want to say anything stupid.  
With a metallic clank the iron gates swung open. Mike could smell the chocolate worse than ever. He wanted more than anything to turn tail and run, but it simply wasn't an option.  
After what seemed like an eternity, a voice came over the speakers, "Please enter."  
Now it _definitely_ wasn't an option. He followed suit as all the other kids rushed in.  
"Close the gates."  
A cursory glance back told Mike that there was no going back now. He could see dozens of cameras. The whole world was watching this. Even back home, the families on his street would be pointing and squeaking as _their_ neighbour entered the factory. And Claire…

Feeling a sudden jolt of nerves, Mike straightened up and tried to look more confident, and – if possible – more happy to be there. He looked around at his environment and couldn't help but feel slightly intimidated by the huge factory that was now surrounding him; he was so used to being in a tight, enclosed space, his nose pressed up to a screen of some sort.  
Mike's determination to remain controlled was forgotten the second the doors opened to reveal…  
"_Willy Wonka, Willy Wonka, the amazing chocolatier! Willy Wonka, Willy Wonka, everybody give a cheer. He's modest, clever, and so smart, he barely can restrain it. There's so much generosity, there is no way to contain it, to contain it, to contain, to contain, to contaaaiiin! Willy Wonka, Willy Wonka, he's the one that you're about to meet. Willy Wonka, Willy Wonka, he's a genius who just can't be beat! The magician and the chocolate whiz, he's the best darn guy who ever lived, Willy Wonka, here he is!"  
_He couldn't help it; he furled his upper lip. It was in his nature. Scathing was one of his most honed and perfected skills. And it came in handy when the dolls caught on fire. Gradually the song and dolls ground to a staggering and unglamorous halt. Its end was punctuated by a bout of clapping and breathy giggling from the very right of the line. There was a man with a crazy hat and even crazier glasses on at the other end of the line.  
"Wasn't that just magnificent? I was worried it was getting a little dodgy in the middle part, but then that finale…" he was speaking in a hyper, childish tone that made Mike cringe, "…wow!"  
Mike cringed harder. He knew who this was, even if all the others (including his dad) didn't seem to have a clue.  
"Who are you?" Possessed Jr. asked, and for the first time, Mike noticed in her the same sense of sarcastic indifference that he had. _Pity she's a gum-chewer, _he thought to himself, _she's not all that bad._ He kicked himself for having such thoughts, and then blamed it entirely on Daniel and Claire.  
Mike opened his mouth to enlighten the others on the identity of the mystery guy, but Fraily McFrailson answered before he could: "He's Willy Wonka!"

_Duh…_

**A/N: **This chapter was originally going to tell the story up until Augustus' demise, but the introductions took longer than I thought they would, so I've split the chapter up. Not that you care. Just thought I'd mention it…


	6. At The Factory: Candy, bleagh

**Author's note: **It's long. Longest chapter I've written, possibly ever. But I'm proud of it. I'm _still _not quite at Gloopeth's demise, but that'll definitely be next chapter! Peace out!

**6**

There was a substantially long pause as Willy Wonka stood in front of the small crowd, a look of tension clear in his features. Mike sighed, but refrained from crossing his arms and tapping his foot.  
"Good morning, Starshine!" Wonka suddenly exclaimed, "The earth says 'hello'!"  
Now Mike wanted to bury himself in the snow, if only to cool his burning cheeks; he couldn't believe he was being photographed with this guy. Everything he was doing made Mike want the ground to open up and swallow him (or Wonka; either way was good) and his production of cue cards was no different.  
"Dear guests. Greetings! Welcome to the factory. I shake you warmly by the hand," he extended his arm in illustration. Mike – and from the looks on there faces, quite a few of the others – wanted to take that arm in a firm grip, pull him to the floor with it and land a few punches in his stomach. The purple, latex gloves squeaked horribly as Wonka withdrew his hand and continued, looking decidedly perplexed, "My name is Willy Wonka."  
_We'd gathered that.  
_"Then shouldn't you be up there?" Satanic Kid asked, pointing up to a throne with a large 'W' emblazoned on it that Mike had somehow missed; he'd been too shocked by the dolls. But now she mentioned it, she had a point – why _wasn't_ he up there? He glanced over at Satanic Kid and saw yet another sarcastic, scathing look, that wasn't quite as good as Possessed Junior's had been, but was still pretty Mike-ish. Again, he scolded himself for being very _un_-Mike; again, he blamed it on Daniel and Claire.  
"Well, I couldn't very well watch the show from up there, now, could I, li'l girl?" Wonka answered. Mike rolled his eyes. Only one word was going round in his head: _freak_. He followed the others up to inside the factory.  
"Don't you want to know our names?" The Blob said. He was definitely Augustus – the accent told Mike that he was Augustus.  
"Can't imagine how it would matter," Wonka replied. Mike took a closer look at the doll display to take his mind off how bored and/or scared he felt. Wonka may have seen him taking an unusually fascinated interest in burnt dolls as he said, "Come along, far too much to see."

Mike was then taken into a stark white cylindrical corridor. He eyed the place with curiosity; if the rest of the factory was like this, maybe it wouldn't be so bad. It was the big, bold, in-your-face, trying-too-hard, kindergarten colours that adorned Wonka's candy wrappers that Mike had been afraid of.  
"Just drop your coats anywhere," Wonka said. Mike shrugged off his coat gratefully. He noticed how sweltering it was for the first time.  
"Mr. Wonka," Mr. Teavee said, "It sure is toasty in here."  
_Eloquently put, Dad,_ Mike cringed, _Which college was it you graduated from, again?  
_Wonka didn't seem to mind his dad's lack of vocabulary, "Oh, yeah. I have to keep it warm in here 'cos my workers are used to an extremely hot climate. They just can't stand the cold."  
"Who're the workers?" Scruffy asked. Mike really didn't care.  
"All in good time," Wonka replied. Mike groaned.  
Wonka turned and walked a little way down the corridor and Mike reluctantly followed. After a little while Possessed Jr. ran up to Wonka and threw her arms around his waist. Mike stopped dead in his tracks. This wasn't something he wanted to be involved in.  
"Mr. Wonka," she said in a bright voice, "I'm Violet Beauregard."  
"Oh," Wonka replied, then added (after a long hesitation where Possessed Jr.'s gum-chewing echoed revoltingly around the corridor), "I don't care."  
He set off again, but Possessed Jr. was right behind him, "Well you should care, 'cause I'm the girl who's gonna win the special prize at the end."  
Mike reluctantly put one foot forward and started to walk again.  
"Well, you do seem confident," Wonka replied to Possessed Jr., "and confidence is the key."  
Possessed Jr. shot a delighted look back at her creator who gave the most creepy smile Mike had ever seen. He guessed it was supposed to be encouraging. Satanic Kid then stepped in front of Wonka. Mike didn't blame him for grimacing and stepping back.  
"I'm Veruca Salt," she said, sweetly but firmly, "It's very nice to meet you, sir."  
As she curtseyed, Mike suppressed a giggle. _Veruca? _What kind of a name was that? Mike had always thought a veruca was a kind of wart you got on the bottom of your foot.  
"I always thought a veruca was a kind of wart you got on the bottom of your foot, ha!"  
Mike blinked in shock, then snapped himself out of it. OK, so this guy was cleverer than he looked; didn't make him better than Mike. Right?  
The Blob suddenly stepped in front of her, "I'm Augushtush Gloop. I _love_ your schocolate!"  
_Too right,_ Mike thought to himself, _and how long did it take you to memorise that speech?_ He shook his head sadly and began to follow the others a little further down the corridor before Wonka suddenly stopped and span round to look right at him. Right into his eyes. Boring into them uncomfortably, like he was trying to read his mind. Mike made a mental barrier to stop that from happening.  
"You. You're Mike Teavee."  
_And the prize for stating the most painfully obvious goes to…  
_"You're the little devil who cracked the system."  
Mike drew his head back a little, partly because he was creeped out by Wonka, and partly because he was confused. _Cracked the system, _Wonka had said. Mike hadn't cracked the system. He'd just used his own, more effective, one. Anyone with half a mind could do it, surely. Mike smirked as he realized he was the only person in the world to successfully track down a Golden Ticket via mathematics. That made him the best. And being the best was what Mike did…well, best. He caught Possessed Jr.'s eye for a second whilst Wonka talked to Scruffy. She looked vaguely impressed, and Mike presumed that that wasn't an emotion she expressed very often, given her ultra-competitive attitude. He felt a small glow of pride and walked on with the rest of the group.

They stopped at the end of the corridor in front of a kind of porthole.  
"An important room, this," Wonka announced, "It is a chocolate factory after all."  
Mike ignored the presumably-irrelevant latter part of that comment, and focused on the much more perplexing former part. An important _room_? How could that tiny porthole – or door – lead to the most important room in the factory? Mike renewed his theory that Wonka was crazy.  
No one else seemed as worried by this as him, so he voiced the question: "Then why is the door so small?"  
"To keep all the great big chocolaty flavor inside!"  
_Ask a stupid question…  
_Wonka produced a key and proceeded to open the 'door' to reveal a huge room that looked like something out of a fairytale. There were huge candy trees everywhere, and a chocolate river with accompanying waterfall. The grass was the greenest grass Mike had ever seen. There were reds and blues and yellows and pinks and colours he'd never even encountered before scattered around. Half of Mike wanted to throw up, the other half was inspired (though he leaned a little more towards the 'throwing up' side, as the whole room smelt of sugar).  
Mike found himself on a grassy bank, looking around in wonder, letting his legs take him along.  
"Now, do be careful, my dear children," Wonka warned, "Don't lose your heads. Don't get over-excited. Just keep very calm."  
In front of Mike, Augustus dropped the candy bar he was carrying. Mike looked away in disgust – dropping candy for more candy. That was lower than low.  
"It's beautiful," Scruffy said in a sickeningly sycophantic tone of voice.  
"Wha…?" Wonka said, "Oh, yeah, it's very beautiful."  
He didn't sound all that passionate about it. Either he thought he could improve on his work, somehow, or he was so used to getting compliments that he just took them in his stride. Mike secretly hoped it was the first option.  
He followed blindly as the group trekked across an arch that stretched over the chocolate river. He noticed Wonka doing some weird traffic-director-esque hand movements (his purple gloves squeaking irritatingly), and took great pleasure in hurrying along in the direction he was signaling. Just as he had dashed past the insane chocolatier…  
"People!"  
_What do you want now?  
_Wonka pointed towards the ceiling and Mike saw a huge contraption that resembled a three-legged spider with extendable legs.  
"Those pipes suck up the chocolate," Wonka explained, "and carry it away. All over the factory."  
Mike's dad prodded him in the back and looked at him in an 'isn't-that-interesting?' sort of way. Mike knew this was one of his dad's pathetic attempts at asserting his power over him. In response, Mike pulled a face and turned away.  
"And do you like my meadow?" _No. _"Please try some of my grass, please do. It's so delectable, and so darn good-looking."  
Mike remained stony-faced and looked around for Possessed Jr. whilst Scruffy asked something about the grass. She caught his stare and smiled at him. He tried to smile back but then caught a few words of Wonka's reply to Scruffy that made him turn his head away from her.  
"Everything in this room is eatable. Even _I'm_ eatable. But that is called cannibalism, my dear children, and is in fact frowned upon in most societies."  
_Wha…?  
_Mike, like many of the others, decided to ignore this fairly inappropriate – and incredibly creepy – comment, and turned back to Possessed Jr. but she was still looking at Wonka with an incredulous look on her face. She'd even stopped chewing that damn gum. Mike fought the urge to laugh as he was reminded of something Daniel often said: "You know the situation's hit rock-bottom when the players stop playing and the dancers stop dancing." Mike had never fully understood it before, but adding on 'and the gum-chewers stop chewing' it all made sense.

Mike looked up to see a couple of the kids run off from the group. He tried to follow them, but his dad held him back. Mike sighed; he knew why his dad had stopped him – in fact, he'd practically read his son's mind – but even though his main priority was to wreak as much havoc as possible, he also wanted to talk to Satanic Kid and Possessed Jr…no, Veruca and Violet. He certainly couldn't say those names in front of them. One pleading look at his dad, and he set off.  
He caught up with Satanic Kid…Veruca…first.  
"Hi," he said nonchalantly.  
"You're the cheater," Veruca said bluntly, "Daddy said not to go too near you."  
_Great, _Mike thought, _I've been talking to her for ten seconds and I already want to rip her throat out.  
_"Always do what daddy says, huh?" he asked.  
"Of course."  
"And I guess he returns the favour…"  
Satanic Kid's eyes flared in anger, "What's that supposed to mean?"  
"You brought up the subject of cheating," Mike said casually, "How many Wonka bar's did _you_ buy?"  
"Shut up. You're just jealous that my parent's give me everything I want, whilst yours…" she eyed his skull shirt and low-quality sneakers, "…don't."  
"They give me what I need, when I need it. I don't want any more than that."  
He felt a sudden guilty lurch; of course he wanted more than that. Who wouldn't? Trouble is, he didn't know exactly _what _he wanted…and his one suspicion was out-of-bounds.  
"Do you have a girlfriend?" Veruca suddenly asked. Mike gave a start – had she read his mind or something?  
"No."  
"Oh."  
Mike's eyes nervously flickered round the room and he noticed Possessed Jr. talking to The Blob. Or attempting to; from the looks of it, the language barrier was proving a problem. Mike assumed the main problem was that Violet didn't know German for 'I'm better than you in every way'. He then smirked as he realized that he did. He could have waltzed over there and said it, but he thought that could seem a bit presumptuous, so he decided to let his excess anger out on a candy pumpkin.  
For a few blissful minutes, Mike felt at home again. Until…  
"Son…"  
He looked up to see his dad looking rather embarrassed.  
"Please."  
"Dad," Mike replied, "He said 'enjoy'!"  
And he would…


	7. At The Factory: Gloopeth's Demise

**Author's note: **Got a bit confused with who said what in this chapter, so I guessed. Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong!

**7**

"Daddy, look over there!" Satanic Kid called to her father. Mike also turned to see a strange little man in a red jumpsuit drilling away at the ground. He jogged down to join the group who had reassembled on the riverbank.  
"It's a little person," Satanic Kid stated the obvious.  
"There's two of them," Mrs. Possessed said.  
"There's more than two," Mr. Teavee said. Unless Mike was hearing things, his dad sounded a little scared. To an extent, Mike didn't blame him; this whole factory was proving to be a little on the insane side of the spectrum. Plus, his dad was jumpy a lot of the time anyway. Mike shook his head in disbelief as more of the little freaks appeared from nowhere.  
"What are they?" Scruffy asked.  
"Are they real people?" Mike asked; they couldn't be, right?  
"Of course they're real people, they're Oompa-Loompas!" Wonka replied. _Riiight, _Mike thought, _I guess that's what candy does to you.  
_"Oompa-Loompas?" Posh English Dude asked in a tone as incredulous as Mike was feeling.  
"Imported," Wonka said simply, "Direct from Loompa Land."  
"There's no such place," Mike's dad said.  
"What?"  
"Mr. Wonka, I teach high school geography, and I'm here to tell you-"  
"Well," Wonka interrupted, "then you'll know all about it and know what a terrible country it is."  
Mike snapped his head first towards Wonka, then towards his dad who looked decidedly shocked. Not normally one to stick up for his parents, Mike now wanted to punch Wonka in the stomach and scream, "My dad would know!"  
He phased out as Wonka proceeded to tell them some extremely dull facts about the so-called Loompa Land. He saw Possessed Junior was looking pretty bored, too, so he took the opportunity to shuffle over to her and attempt conversation. He had just managed to squeeze past Posh English Dude and was about to shove Fraily McFrailson out of the way, when she blew a huge bubble with her gum. Mike jumped when it popped and something inside him stopped him from going any further towards him. He didn't know if it was the gum itself that creeped him out, or her intimidating aura, or just the fact that she was another human being, but he took a couple of steps back to rejoin his dad.

Mike stared at the ground with mixed feelings of confusion, disappointment and regret. It wasn't like him to be so scared; in fact, he was usually the one to make other people scared. It was Daniel and Claire again, he knew it. They'd freaked him out by suggesting having a girlfriend and now it was making him paranoid. That's why he'd resorted to sarcasm with Satanic Kid; that's why he couldn't go anywhere near Possessed Junior. It pissed him off.  
"Gimme my life back…" he muttered to no one.  
"Augustus, my child!" the plump woman shrieked suddenly, "That is not a good thing you do!"  
Everyone's eyes locked on The Blob who was scooping up chocolate from the river into his mouth. Mike was both repelled and transfixed by it.  
"Hey, li'l boy!" Wonka yelled, "My chocolate must be untouched by human hands…"  
Mike raised his eyes to the ceiling in despair, and saw a set of pipes heading for the river. He spun round, but no one else seemed to have noticed. He saw why when he looked back at The Blob who had fallen, head first, into the river. Mike heard his dad gasp behind him, and the plump woman didn't look all that happy. Panting for breath, The Blob re-emerged from the chocolate river, only to sink back down again.  
"He can't swim! Save him!"  
Mike felt a twang of sympathy for him; OK, he was an enormous fat blob of mush who probably deserved it, but it was still pretty harsh. Mike flicked his eyes back up to the pipes, that were now beginning to lower towards the river. He looked back at Wonka and thought about telling him, but it looked like he already knew as he was looking in the same direction…and he was smiling! Mike swore he was smiling! _Actually_ smiling! Mike looked desperately around to see if anyone else noticed it, but they were too busy only just noticing the huge pipes. The Blob was gradually making his way further and further towards the middle of the river, and Mike began to panic as the pipes lowered into the chocolate. Swirling round and round, The Blob's screams drifted in and out of audibility before he was sucked under. The plump woman was standing there in shock, mouth half-open, speechless. Mike considered diving in after The Blob, but remembered he would then be covered in chocolate, and he wasn't prepared to sacrifice that much for someone he'd only just met.  
_Whoosh!  
_The Blob flew up the pipe.  
"There he goes," Possessed Junior muttered, still sounding quite bored.  
"It's a wonder how that pipe is big enough…" her duplicate pondered. Mike had to agree.  
"It's not big enough," Scruffy said, and Mike looked back up at The Blob, "He's slowing down."  
"He's gonna stick," Mike declared.  
"I think he has," Mr. Teavee supplied.  
_Score one to Mike Teavee! _Mike thought triumphantly.  
"He's blocked the whole pipe!" Posh English Dude said.

Suddenly the Oompa-Loompas threw down their tools and equipment and started running around, apparently trying to get into some kind of formation.  
"Look, the Oompa-Loompas!" Scruffy cried, "What are they doing?"  
"Why," Wonka said, almost in a dream, like this was the most magical and beautiful sight he'd ever seen, "I believe they're going to treat us to a little song."  
_Treat? More like torture…  
_Sure enough, the Oompa-Loompas started humming, "_Oompa loompa, Oompa loompa, Oompa loompa, loompa, loompa…_"  
"It's quite a special occasion of course," Wonka continued, still in his dream-like state, "They haven't had a fresh audience in many a moon."  
Mike prepared himself to cross his arms as they started singing:

"_Augustus Gloop, Augustus Gloop,  
__The great big greedy nincompoop,"_

Mike's eyes widened with shock. There was Augustus, stuck halfway up a pipe, and they're singing some Bollywood ripoff about him! Even _he_ thought that was mean!

"_Augustus Gloop, so big and vile,  
__So greedy, foul, and infantile,  
__'Come on!' we cry, the time is ripe,  
__To send him shooting up the pipe,"_

One of them was suddenly standing just to his left. He jumped and backed off a bit.

"_But don't, dear children, be alarmed-" _it sang.

"_Augustus Gloop will not be harmed,  
__Augustus Gloop will not be harmed,"_

Mike looked around for the source of the trumpets, but couldn't see any anywhere. Things were getting very fishy, and he had a foreboding sense about the rest of the tour, too.

"_Although, of course, we must admit,  
__He will be altered quite a bit,  
__Slowly wheels go round and round,  
__And cogs begin to grind and pound,  
__This greedy brute, this louse's ear,  
__Is loved by people everywhere,  
__For who can hate or bear a grudge,  
__Against a luscious bit of fudge?"_

Mike snorted; he certainly could. He watched in numb disbelief as The Blob was propelled into the basin at the top of the pipes and the Oompa-Loompas finished off their song.  
"I must say that all seemed rather rehearsed," Posh English Dude said, saying exactly what Mike was thinking.  
"Like they knew it was gonna happen…" Mike added.  
"Don't be ridiculous," Wonka replied, "How could they know it was gonna happen?"  
"Where is my son?" the plump woman asked, "Where does zat pipe go to?"  
"That pipe," Wonka replied, "Just so happens to lead to the room where I make the most delicious kind of strawberry-flavored, chocolate-coated fudge!"  
"Then he will be made into strawberry-flavored, chocolate-coated fudge?" the plump woman was getting more agitated by the second, and, as far as Mike could see, she had every reason, "They will be selling him by the pound, all over the world!"  
That was the main reason…  
"No," Wonka said bluntly, "I wouldn't allow it. The taste would be terrible. Can you imagine Augustus-flavored Chocolate-coated Gloop? Ew! No one would buy it."  
There were too many politically incorrect phrases in those few sentences that Mike couldn't even think about it, although 'no one would buy it' was sticking very firmly in his mind. He looked over at the two girls and Scruffy who looked every bit as shocked as himself. His thoughts were interrupted by Wonka making a _weird_ noise with his tongue. It was obviously a call for the Oompa-Loompas as one of them appeared. Mike looked suspiciously at Wonka; did he really have to revert to making odd noises to call them? It was perfectly clear that the Oompa-Loompas spoke English, because they'd just _sung_ in English. Unless…no, it was too horrible to be true.  
"I want you to take Mrs. Gloop up to the fudge room. K? Help her find her so," Wonka said to the Oompa-Loompa, "Take a long stick, and start poking around in the big chocolate mixing barrel."  
He demonstrated with his cane. Mike was now the most scared he'd ever been in his life. With a tug of her skirt, the Oompa-Loompa led the plump woman away from the group and (Mike hoped) to her son.  
"Mr. Wonka?" Scruffy asked.  
"Huh?"  
"Why would Augustus' name already be in the Oompa-Loompa song? Unless-"  
"Improvisation is a parlor trick," Wonka interrupted, "Anyone can do it. You, li'l girl. Say something."  
Possessed Junior looked up at him for a second, "Chewing gum."  
_WHAT a surprise, _Mike thought.  
"Chewing gum is really gross, chewing gum I hate the most. See? Exactly the same."  
"No, it isn't!" Mike argued.  
Wonka looked at him for while, apparently trying to decide what to think of him, "Uh, you really shouldn't mumble, because I can't understand a word you're saying."  
Mike fumed with anger; who did Wonka think he was?  
"On with the tour!"  
Still shaking, Mike was nudged by his dad and he followed the group down to where a huge pink boat was emerging from the direction of the waterfall.  
_Oh, man…_


	8. At The Factory: River Cruise

**Author's note: **I love the list in this chapter. I had great fun making it! Hope it makes sense…

**8**

"Heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh…"  
Mike eyed the giggling Oompa-Loompas with disdain.  
"What's so funny?" Possessed Jr. asked with a sneer; Mike was beginning to develop a soft spot for that sneer. He looked at Violet carefully whilst Wonka said something to do with cocoa beans that Mike _really_ didn't care about. Neat blond hair, smooth fair skin, sparkling emerald eyes…if only she didn't chew that damned gum!  
"…triggers the release of endorphins."  
Mike's ears pricked up at the sound of science.  
"Gives one the feeling of being in love," Wonka concluded.  
"You don't say…" Mrs. Possessed said flirtatiously. Mike's eyes flickered between her and Wonka and he felt physically sick. Wonka didn't look in great shape, either.  
"All aboard!" he yelled nervously.  
Everyone piled into the boat. Mike managed to get on the same seat as Possessed Jr. but her mother pushed him out of the way before he could sit with her. He faked a trip to make it look as though he was stumbling to get to his dad, who was one row back. He took one last look at the chocolate room, wondering if he'd ever work up enough courage to talk to Violet…or Claire…or Veruca…  
"Onward!"  
The boat gave a small jolt, but other than that, Mike found the ride quite pleasant. Boring, but pleasant. Sailing through chocolate was somehow not the same as sailing through water; sailing through chocolate felt smoother, and it gave Mike a strange, calming impression that, due to almost 13 years of constant gaming, was an alien experience for him.  
"You already said that," Satanic Kid suddenly said. Mike was confused for a second before Wonka moved on to what was clearly a completely different subject.  
"You're all quite short, aren't you?"  
_Noooooo, never…  
_"Well, yeah," Possessed Jr. said, spinning round in her seat, "We're children."  
The corner of Mike's mouth lifted into a half-smile.  
"Well that's no excuse, I was never as short as you."  
Mike turned around, "You were once."  
"Was _not_! Know why?"  
Mike prepared to launch into a lengthy scientific speech about how it was impossible for him _not_ to have been a child, with lots of unnecessarily long words that Wonka would definitely not understand, but Wonka beat him to the explanation, "Because I distinctly remember putting a hat on top of my head. Look at your short little arms."  
Mike, beyond all better judgement, actually did look at his arms, then blushed and considered jumping into the chocolate river for the second time that day.  
"You could never reach."  
_Wish I could, _Mike thought, _Then I could punch your lights out._

From where he was sitting, Mike had clear views of both the girls. He knew it was sick and wrong, and if anyone was reading his mind at that moment they'd probably hit him, but he started comparing Violet and Veruca. Weighing up their good points and bad points. Seeing who was…better, really. He drew up a mental list.  
_GOOD POINTS –  
__**Possessed Jr.: **Pretty, lives relatively nearby, can hold her own, able to argue.  
__**Satanic Kid: **Nice hair, easy to get parents' permission to be her boyfriend, bubbly personality, able to argue.  
__BAD POINTS –  
__**Possessed Jr.: **Probably already has a boyfriend, is a clone of her mother, GUM CHEWER!  
__**Satanic Kid: **Lives on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean, overly-demanding, no escape route out of being her boyfriend due to being overly-demanding.  
_Mike pinched himself on the wrist; he had used the word 'boyfriend' _three times!_

Suddenly, Mike was thrown back in his seat as Wonka yelled, "Full speed ahead!"  
They entered into the dark tunnel before them. Mike squinted into the darkness for any sign of anything sane, but the combination of the pitch-black surroundings and the fierce breeze pounding into his eyes made it impossible.  
"How can they see where they're going?" Possessed Jr. shouted over the roaring noise and heavy drumbeats.  
"They can't," Wonka shouted back, "There's no knowing where they're going. Switch on the lights!"  
Finally, some flashing, coloured lights appeared and Mike got a glimpse of the tunnel up ahead. But they didn't go through that tunnel. Instead, they plummeted downwards. He gripped onto his seat for dear life, his carefully spiked hair flying in all directions. It was too fast for any conscious thought to cross his mind; it was too fast for him to take anything in; it was even too fast for him to scream. For what seemed like hours, they hurtled through the tunnel, the boat spinning and swaying madly, until Mike eventually got used to it. His breathing and pulse rates dropped a little, and he even began to feel quite exhilarated. He looked over at his dad who looked positively ghastly.  
"Isn't this cool?" Mike yelled over at him, "It's like being in a real-life video game!"  
Mr. Teavee smiled weakly and turned ever so slightly green. Mike couldn't help but laugh. He let the gusting wind blow over him as the boat lifted clean off the chocolate, enjoying the flying sensation, before it slammed back down into the river. He realised he was breathing heavily when the boat slowed down and cruised into a cavern surrounded by lots of vaults, some of which were open, some of which weren't.  
"Keep an eye out," Wonka told them, "We're passing some very important rooms, here."  
_Clotted cream…double cream…sour cream…_Mike began to see a pattern _…Hair cream?  
_"What do you use hair cream for?" Mrs. Possessed asked with a look of distaste.  
"To lock in moisture," Wonka replied, patting his hair lovingly. Mike's attention was drawn to his own hair, which was in a state of disarray. He ran a hand through it in an attempt to get it back to normal.

He heard a strange sound emanate from one of the open vaults…sort of like a cow being whipped…  
Sure enough, there was a cow being whipped by four Oompa-Loompas.  
_Nice…real nice, _Mike thought.  
"Whipped cream!" Scruffy said jubilantly. Wonka looked at him, almost adoringly, and replied, "Precisely! Haha!"  
Immediately, Scruffy became Mike's primary competition. He was already at the top of Wonka's list, and he seemed to have something against everyone else.  
"That doesn't make sense," Satanic Kid said, turning around again.  
"For your information, li'l girl," Wonka replied, with a bright voice, but a stony face, "Whipped cream isn't whipped cream at all unless it's been whipped with whips. Everyone knows that."  
Satanic Kid pouted and tried to maintain her glare against Wonka's, but he won in the end and she had to turn away…and looked right at Mike. He gave her a sympathetic look; one he hoped would say 'yeah, I agree, he's a freak'. Apparently it did, and she smiled at him. He grinned back before being thrown back in his seat again. He sighed; even chocolate rapids were getting boring…  
"Stop the boat!" Wonka cried, "I wanna show you guys something."  
Mike looked up, running his hand through his hair again, and saw another large vault door: Inventing Room.  
_This oughta be good._


	9. At The Factory: Goodbye Possessed Jr

**Author's note: **Wow! Reviews! I actually have a decent amount to give some feedback:  
**Sunrise over the Tango Factory: **Thanks, Bex, for the very informative review…as always. Keep it up, huni!**  
boogle: **Glad you like this fic. It's proving more popular than I had imagined…  
**The Weaving Wheel: **If you check, you'll see I took your advice and tried a first-person fic (of Mike, obviously)! And your Draco Malfoy comment was in NO WAY insulting! I love him almost as much as I love Mike!  
**Necromancer and Sorcerer: **Thank you! I am so so so so SO pleased that people are liking this fic! You have no idea how pleased! Anyway, this fic WILL end up MikexClaire (all Mary-Sue haters, look away now!) but it'll go through MikexViolet and MikexVeruca first. So it'll satisfy your needs, lol!  
**Zombie Kitty: **Thanks for review…didn't help me at all…in fact, have you actually SEEN catcf yet? If you haven't, then you'd better! And then you can see just how cute Mike is!  
**soccerstar8281: **YAY! Someone loves chapter 8! I'm so happy! And also, THANK YOU for liking the name Possessed Jr.! I love it too. And Fraily McFrailson. Two of my greatest inventions, heh.  
**Leigh the Wonderlord: **I know how you feel. I am very oppositional too, which makes it so easy for me to write this from Mike's point of view! #waves flags also# Spoiled oppositional brats rule!

**9**

Mike took one look at the Inventing Room and felt right at home; loud noises, shiny metallic cylinders, steam ascending from nowhere, millions of knobs and levers that were just asking to be fiddled about with. He gazed around, genuinely in awe.  
"This is the most important room in the entire factory," Wonka informed them, "Now, everyone enjoy yourselves, but just don't…touch anything."  
Immediately, Possessed Jr. broke off from the rest of the group, ran to a big basin thing and peered inside. Mike wasted no time in dashing after her. He noticed hid dad was chasing after him, no doubt to stop him trying to smash anything else up, but Mike just ran faster to shake him off. He reached Possessed Jr. and started looking around the basin thing, searching for something to say, though it seemed his vocal chords had decided to freeze up. He pretended to be interested in the Oompa-Loompas swimming around retrieving balls, whilst he fought with himself to _not_ refer to her as 'Possessed Jr.'.  
_Violet!_ He screamed at himself, _her name is Violet! _Say_ something you lunatic! _He opened his mouth to speak…  
"Hey, Mr. Wonka, what's this?" Violet asked, pointing at the basin thing.  
_Dammit, you blew it,_ one voice in Mike's head said, whilst another said, _oh well. You're next two words were going to be 'gum chewer' anyway…_

"Oh, lemme show you," Wonka replied. Mike stepped back and allowed Wonka to take one of the brightly-coloured balls from an Oompa-Loompa.  
"Thank you!" he turned back to face the group, "There are Everlasting Gobstoppers. They're for children who get very little allowance money. You can suck on them all year, and they won't get any smaller."  
_Neat idea_, Mike admitted to himself, _Pity he had to apply it to candy._ For a split-second, he considered designing a video game that didn't have a top level; you could just keep playing and playing it forever…  
"It's like gum," Possessed Jr. said.  
"No," Wonka stated, "Gum is for _chewing_. You try chewing one of these Gobstoppers, you'd break all your little teeth off."  
Mike suddenly had the strongest urge to force-feed one of the Gobstoppers to the crazed chocolatier; maybe if he had no teeth he'd shut the hell up.  
"They sure do taste terrific," Wonka gazed at the sweet lovingly, snapping out of it only to go fetch yet another one, "And these are Hair Toffees!"  
Mike noticed some of the Oompa-Loompas nervously backing away, and made a mental note _never_ to eat a Hair Toffee, even if he felt the inclination.  
"You suck down one of these little boogers, and a brand new crop of hair will start growing out of the top of your little noggin! And a moustache. And a _beard_!"  
"Who wants a beard?" Mike said as more of a statement than a question.  
"A-well…beatniks for one. Folk singers and motorbike riders-" Mike cringed, "-gets you in the fridge, daddy-o! Are you hip to the jive? Can you dig what I'm laying down?" Mike didn't know whether or not this was supposed to be impressing him, or scaring him, "I knew that you could, slide me some skin, soul brother!"  
Wonka extended a hand towards Mike, who mustered all the sarcasm he could and directed it at Wonka in one facial expression. Wonka's hand drew back with another horrible squeak.  
"Uh, unfortunately the mixture isn't quite right," Wonka said hesitantly, "'cos an Oompa-Loompa tried some, and …well…he…"  
An Oompa-Loompa (at least, Mike guessed it was an Oompa-Loompa) strode up to them covered from head to toe in hair. Mike looked down on the little man in shock.  
_Don't eat Hair Toffees, either…  
_"How are you today?" Wonka asked, leaning in and speaking slowly, like he was talking to a six-year-old. The Oompa-Loompa raised both his thumbs.  
"You look…great!" Wonka reassured him, and he dropped his arms back to his side. Mike slightly hoped that the Oompa-Loompa was giving Wonka the finger under all that hair.

They walked over to a huge machine and Wonka pulled a lever, "Watch this…"  
More steam and loud noises erupted around the group.  
_Finally! _Mike thought, _Something I could be interested in!  
_A silver arm protruded in front of him, and he watched in growing excitement as it developed further, unfolding extra sections, twisting and turning.  
_Ding!  
_Possessed Jr. reached out and ripped off the tiny strip of candy that was produced from it. Mike was immensely disappointed, "You mean that's it?"  
"Do you even know what 'it' is?" Wonka said, imitating Mike's voice pattern. Mike scowled and decided not to say anything else to Wonka. Ever.  
"It's gum," Possessed Jr. supplied.  
"Yeah! It's a stick of the most amazing and sensational gum in the whole universe. Know why? KNOW WHY?" Wonka seemed rather excited…possibly a little _too_ excited, "'Cos this gum happens to be a full three-course dinner all by itself!"  
Since he was blocking Wonka, Mike waited for someone else to ask…  
"Why would anyone want that?"  
Wonka turned to Mr. Salt and hesitated before pulling out his cue cards again, "It will be the end of all kitchens and cooking. Just a little strip of Wonka's magic chewing gum and that is all you will…" he flipped through the cards, "…ever need at breakfast, lunch and dinner! This piece happens to be tomato soup, roast beef and blueberry pie."  
Mike wondered why this information was already on the card. Unless he'd known that that was the gum that was going to be made. He looked over at Possessed Jr. who had a determined, almost maniacal, glint in her eye. Immediately, Mike knew what was going to happen. He shook his head desperately at her when she caught his eye, but she just smiled back.  
"It sounds great!" Fraily McFrailson said, but Mike barely registered his words. He was debating whether to go over to Violet and slap the gum out of her hand or not. There were four clear paths that Mike faced: one was that there was nothing wrong with the gum, and he didn't do anything; the second was that there was nothing wrong with the gum, and he ended up looking like a retard by telling her to stop; the third was that there _was _something wrong with the gum, and he saved her by telling her to stop; and the fourth – and most hideous – was that there was something wrong with the gum, and he did nothing…  
"It sounds weird," Satanic Kid said scathingly. Wonka just gave her a look. Mike wanted to scream, _It DOES! It DOES sound weird! It sounds TOO weird!  
_"It sounds like my kinda gum," Possessed Jr. said firmly. Mike fidgeted with the hem of his shirt, realising he'd been doing that a lot on the tour.  
"Ah, I'd rather you didn't," Wonka warned, to Mike's great relief, "There's still one or two…"  
"I'm the world-record holder in chewing gum," Possessed Jr. said even more firmly, "I'm not afraid of _anything_."  
Mike sighed resignedly as she popped her record gum behind her ear, and crammed Wonka's gum into her mouth.

She started chewing.  
"How is it, honey?" Mrs. Possessed said, her face the perfect vision of pride.  
"It's amazing!" her daughter said excitedly, but muffled by all the chewing, "Tomato soup! I can feel it running down my throat!"  
"Yeah!" Wonka said, panicking a little, "Spit it out!"  
"Young lady," said Fraily McFrailson slowly, "I think you'd better-"  
_For God's sake, listen to them!_ Mike nearly ripped the hem of his shirt clean off.  
"Roast beef!" Violet exclaimed, "With roast potato, crispy skin and butter!"  
"Keep chewin', kiddo," Mrs. Possessed said, "My little girl's gonna be the first person in the world to have a chewing gum meal!"  
_Yeah, and probably the last after the lawyers get to Wonka! _Mike thought. Or rather, hoped.  
"Yeah," Wonka said anxiously, "I'm just a little concerned about the-"  
"Blueberry pie and ice cream!" Violet cried.  
"…that part."  
_Omigod, spit it out, spit it out, spit it out, spit it out, spit it out, spit it out, spit it out, spit it out, spit it out, spit it out…  
_But she didn't. Even when…  
"What's happening to her nose?"  
"It's turning blue."  
Mike didn't try to shake his dad off when he put a protective hand on his shoulder; in fact, he was quite grateful of it.  
"You're whole nose has gone purple!" Mrs. Possessed informed her daughter with more than a hint of worry.  
"What do you mean?" Possessed Jr. asked nervously, feeling her nose for any signs of abnormality.  
"Violet, you're turning violet!" her mother said with disgust.  
It was here Mike knew that this was more than a coincidence. This whole tour was turning out to be very dodgy.

"What's happening?" Mrs. Possessed asked, growing more and more concerned by the second.  
"Well, I told you I hadn't quite gotten it right," Wonka explained "'cos it goes a little funny when it gets to the dessert. It's the blueberry pie that does it…I'm terribly sorry."  
Mike turned in time to see Wonka's hat disappear behind the machine. He looked around frantically for somewhere _he_ could hide, but saw a few Oompa-Loompas talking amongst themselves instead. His eyes followed them curiously as they dashed off and gathered up lots more of their kind, appearing to plot and plan something. And Mike could guess what.  
He glanced at his dad who was staring up, looking totally terrified. Mike followed his stare to see Possessed Jr. swelling up like a…like a…a blueberry…  
Blueberry pie…  
_Way_ more than a coincidence…  
Mike, along with the others, backed away slowly as she swelled beyond what he thought was humanly possible; surely no one had enough skin!  
"I've tried it on, like, twenty Oompa-Loompas, and each one ended up as a blueberry," Wonka said, creeping up behind Mrs. Possessed and making the group jump, "It's just weird!"  
_You mean YOU'RE weird!  
_"But I can't have a blueberry as a daughter!" Mrs Possessed said firmly, "How is she supposed to compete?"  
"You could put her in a county fair!" Satanic Kid said, smiling sweetly. It took all Mike's self-control not to laugh out loud; if he hadn't been so incredibly shocked by this whole factory, and hadn't been quite fond of Violet, then that was something _he_ would have said.

_Listen close, listen hard,  
__The tale of Violet Beauregarde,  
__This little girl she sees no wrong,  
__Chewing, chewing, chewing, chewing, chewing, chewing, all day long,  
__Chewing, chewing, all day long,  
__Chewing, chewing, all day long,  
__Chewing, chewing, all day long_

Mike looked around – Oompa Loompas were everywhere! Scattered around the floor, dancing precariously on suspended metal beams, even bouncing up and down on _Possessed Jr._! Clamping a hand to his mouth, Mike watched the little people in awe as they struck various poses.

_She goes on chewing 'til the last,  
__Her chewing muscles grow so fast,  
__From her face a giant chin,  
__Sticks out just like a violin,  
__Chewing chewing all day long,  
__Chewing chewing all day long,  
__Chewing chewing all day long_

Again, Mike looked around for the instruments whose sounds were echoing around the vast room, but it was clouded with fog that it was impossible to see more than a few feet.

_For years and years she chews away,  
__Her jaws get stronger every day,  
__And with one great tremendous chew,  
__They bite the poor girl's tongue in two,  
__And that is why we try so hard,  
__To save Miss Violet Beauregarde,  
__Chewing chewing all day long,  
__Chewing chewing all day long,  
__Chewing chewing chewing chewing chewing chewing all day long_

The last few lines resounded for a bit as Possessed Jr. was rolled in front of the ever decreasing group and into a big, metal tunnel…that was just the right size for her…  
Mike's anger surged and he found himself wanting to cry. He looked up at Violet and knew it was impossible for her to see him from the angle she was at…but he gave a small wave to her anyway.  
He watched sadly as Mrs. Possessed ran over to her daughter under instructions from Wonka and started to push her through the tunnel.  
If there hadn't been so many people around, Mike would have blown a kiss to Violet.  
_What are you thinking, you weirdo? Mike Teavee is not like that. He is not soppy. He is not sentimental. And he CERTAINLY doesn't develop those sort of feelings for others. Mike Teavee looks out for Mike Teavee.  
_He scolded himself and looked at Wonka, expecting some kind of explanation for the horrific scene he had witnessed.  
"Let's boogie!"


	10. At The Factory: Some may dream

**Author's note: **Keep those reviews flooding in you lovely people! Suffering from a bit of a sprained wrist at the moment – doesn't make typing the easiest job in the world. And my internet messed up. And then the writer's block hit. And of course, homework. So this chapter was a little (OK, a _lot_) later than planned. Sorry!  
**Sunrise over the Tango Factory: **Thanks! For me, it's really easy to get inside Mike's mind, because I have an almost identical personality…hope that doesn't mean I'm gonna end up 3 inches tall…I'm short enough as it is!  
**Leigh the Wonderlord**Yeah, he probably would have killed Wonka…ooh, fic idea! Anyway, thanks for review!  
**Necromancer and Sorcerer**God, your review made me laugh! Do you not like Violet, or something? Lol. Good news – Veruca's downfall isn't until next chapter, so you have more of her brilliance to come:D  
**soccerstar8281: **I wasn't too happy with the ending of the last chapter; reading it back, it does seem a bit un-Mike. But it shows how the tour is changing him. Mayube it was a little too soon? Anyway, I'm rambling again. Thanks for reviewing! Keep it up!  
**The Weaving Wheel**I knew I liked to do it, but I have a _gift_ for making people want to kill Wonka? Rock On! I like writing through a character's eyes, and I'll probably do it more often now I've found it. Thanks!

**10**

"Without the boat we'll have to move double time. There's far too much to see," Wonka said as they strode purposefully down a stark white corridor.  
"Mr Wonka?" Scruffy asked.  
"Huh?"  
"Why did you decide to let people in?"  
"Well, so they could see the factory, of course!" Wonka replied cheerfully. Mike suspected there may have been an altogether different motive for letting five children into this god-awful place. But he couldn't prove anything. Both The Blob and Possessed Jr. had perished because of their _own_ actions. And he suspected that the downfalls of Satanic Kid and Scruffy were going to follow suit (Mike wasn't going to be stupid enough to let temptation overcome him). He didn't particularly care about Scruffy, but Mike kept his eyes peeled for anything Satanic Kid may find appealing. OK, so she wasn't as hot as Possessed Jr. but she wasn't hideous. The fact that Mike was even thinking like this proved to him that he was maturing (whether he liked it or not).  
"What's the special prize and who gets it?" Mike asked, ignoring his 'don't-talk-to-Wonka' rule. He was vaguely aware that Scruffy had said or asked something else, but his question was probably more important. Besides, it proved to Satanic Kid that Mike was that kind of assertive, dominant male that girls found so alluring…or so he'd heard.  
"The best kind of prize is a _sur_prise!" Wonka said, giggling again.  
Although it hurt quite a lot afterwards, Mike actually liked it when Satanic Kid elbowed him out of her way. He began to think that maybe he wasn't exactly 'maturing'; more like 'developing a sicker mind'.  
"Will Violet always be a blueberry?" she asked, with a hint of hope in her voice.  
"Yes."  
_Oh dear…  
_"No."  
_Oh, good.  
_"Maybe."  
_Huh?  
_"I don't know."  
_I give up…  
_"But that's what you get for chewing gum all day, it's just disgusting."  
Mike had so many questions he wanted to ask, so many issues he wanted to address, but he knew he would only bother to deal with one of them. Which one should he go for? Why children were being picked off one by one? Why chewing gum will inevitably make you turn blue? Why everything was completely pointless?  
"If you hate gum so much, then why do you make it?"  
_Great, Mike, just great. Choose the one you care least about, why don't you…  
_"Once again, you really shouldn't mumble, 'cos it's kinda startin' to bum me out!"  
_Just shut up from here on out, OK?_

"Do you remember the first candy you ever ate?" Scruffy asked, possibly because he was genuinely interested, but more likely to stop Mike from hitting Wonka right there and then.  
"No," Wonka said, going into a dream-like trance.  
"Good," Mike drawled, "Something else for you _not_ to tell us."  
"Mike," his dad said warningly, "Behave, OK?"  
"Why? He's not even listening!" Mike said, waving a hand in Wonka's direction. Sure enough, he was stood there, mouth half-open, eyes glazed over, in a total world of his own. Posh English Dude waved a hand in front of his face, but Wonka did nothing. He didn't even blink.  
"Odd…" he said, withdrawing his hand.  
"Daddy," Satanic Kid said, pulling on his sleeve, "I want to get to the next part of the tour."  
"Yeah, so do I, actually," Mike said to his dad, "The sooner we move on, the sooner we get out of here."  
"You have a rather disparaging attitude, don't you, young man?" Posh English Dude said to Mike, leaning down a little.  
"You gotta problem with that?" Mike said, hardly even blinking, though the comment had come as a surprise. Satanic Kid stepped forward.  
"Daddy's told me about people like you," she said, narrowing her eyes.  
"People like me…?"  
"Know-it-alls."  
"I am not a know-it-all! You take that back!"  
Satanic Kid span round, "Daddy! The TV Freak is arguing with me!"  
"That's right, get _Daddy_, why don't you?"  
"See?" Satanic Kid screeched.  
"Mr. Teavee," Posh English Dude said to Mike's father, rather than addressing Mike directly, "I do think you ought to put a tighter hold on your son."  
"Me?" Mr. Teavee said, "What Mike does is his own problem. He needs to learn that we won't always be there for him."  
"Looks like you're never there for him…"  
"Excuse me?"  
"Raising a boy through _television_? I can't think of anything more hideous!"  
Mike raised an eyebrow; that comment was kinda uncalled for.  
"Well, unlike some," Mike's dad said, giving a pointed glare at Posh English Dude, "I don't believe in spoiling children. Give them their distance and let them learn by themselves. Look at Mike…"  
_No, don't look at Mike…  
_"Straight-A student, completely healthy, and, most importantly, completely independent."  
Mike raised his other eyebrow; he's never heard his dad speak like that, particularly not of _him_.  
"Are you saying my little Veruca has none of those qualities?" Posh English Dude asked threateningly.  
"No."  
"But you implied it!"  
"I didn't imply anything!"

Whilst his dad and Posh English Dude had an argument, and the Fraily Family had a Mother's Meeting, Mike was able to talk to Satanic Kid.  
"How many ponies ya got?" he asked sarcastically.  
"Three. Not that it's any of your business."  
"Think you're gonna win?" asked Mike.  
"I expect so," Satanic Kid said, "Daddy will make it happen."  
"Oh, I _bet_ he will…" Mike muttered under his breath.  
"You don't like me, do you?" Satanic Kid said, her voice quavering slightly. Mike couldn't help but feel a twang of sympathy.  
"Well…it's a little hard to judge. I barely know you."  
"No one ever likes me. They always think I'm over-protected."  
"You _are _over-protected," Mike said firmly, "If you just broke free from your dad and became independent then I bet you could-"  
"End up like you?" Satanic Kid snapped.  
Mike blinked, "What?"  
"You think you're so smart!"  
"Well, I don't mean to sound boastful here," (that was a total lie), "But I am smart. I can beat any_one_ at any_thing_."  
"Sounds like a challenge."  
Mike sighed, "OK, what do you think you can beat me at?"  
Satanic Kid pondered for a bit, "I can beat you to the special prize at the end of this tour."  
He snorted, "You're on!"  
Mike studied Veruca carefully; she was really quite pretty. Up until now, Possessed Jr. had always been around to steal the limelight from her, but she really was beautiful in herself. If only she'd smile or something! Though, that might be a bit hypocritical of Mike…  
"You got a boyfriend?" the question slipped out of Mike's mouth before he could stop it.  
"No," Satanic Kid almost snapped, like she'd been expecting the question.  
"Neither do I," Mike said, then put a hand to his head when he realised what he'd just implied, "I don't mean that I don't have a boyfriend. No, wait…I _do_ mean that I don't have a boyfriend! Because I don't! I…I meant girlfriend. I don't have a girlfriend, though I don't have a boyfriend either, I…I…"  
He staggered to a halt when he realised Satanic Kid was laughing. Laughing! At Mike! Or was it _with_ Mike? He played the conversation over in his head, found the funny side, and started laughing too. She really did look amazing when she laughed…

Mike didn't know how it happened. One minute he and Veruca had been laughing with each other, the next he was kissing her, and now he was squirming in his father's hands.  
"Mike!" Mr. Teavee hollered, "What do you think you're doing?"  
"Get off me!" Mike shouted, pulling his shirt away from his dad's grip.  
"Veruca!" it looked like she was going to get a lecture, too, "That is no way for a young lady to behave!"  
"It wasn't me, it was him!" Satanic Kid screeched, pointing at Mike, "He just leapt on me for no reason!"  
"Hey!" Mike retorted, then noticed the Frailies looking at them with more than a hint of contempt, "What are _you_ looking at?"  
"Don't you try to change the subject," Posh English Dude said, moving dangerously close to Mike.  
"I don't want to hear this!" Mr. Teavee said conclusively, pulling Mike by the arm out of Mr. Salt's reach, "Let's just all of us keep our distance from each other, okay?"  
"I'm sorry, I was having another flashback…" Wonka suddenly said, focusing out of his fantasy and back into the real world.  
"I see…" Posh English Dude said, pulling Satanic Kid closer to him (possibly away from Wonka, but more probably away from Mike).  
"These flashbacks happen often?" the angriness had almost completely vanished from Mike's father's voice.  
"Increasingly," Wonka replied, "…today."  
He walked on with a faint laugh, and the others followed.  
Eventually they reached a vault.  
**Nut-Sorting Room.  
**Mike smiled to himself, knowing exactly what was going to happen. And he couldn't say she didn't deserve it!


	11. At The Factory: Satanic Kid goes nuts

**Author's note: **Only a couple more chapters left in the factory now, then it's back to see how Daniel and Claire are doing. Not sure about the list of animals that Veruca says. I've got the DVD now, so I'll check later and correct it. R&R please!

**11**

"Ah, this is a room I know all about," Posh English Dude says, "For you see, Mr. Wonka, I myself am in the nut business."  
_What a coincidence!  
_Wonka was handed a business card which was sent straight over his shoulder; Mike couldn't help but feel amused by it.  
"Are you using the Halamax 3000 to do your sorting?"  
_Who cares?  
_"Nnnnno, hahahaha! You're really weird!"  
_True, but kinda hypocritical.  
_Wonka strode into the room, followed by the remainder of the tour-group. Mike winced at the massive noise and looked around for the source of it. He didn't have to look very hard as he saw about eighty squirrels hitting walnuts. Not for the first time that day, Mike was confused.  
"Squirrels!" Satanic Kid exclaimed. Mike didn't say 'duh', although he really, really wanted to.  
"Yeah, squirrels!" Wonka said, "These squirrels are specially trained to get the nuts out of shells."  
"Why use squirrels?" asked Posh English Dude, "Why not use Oompa-Loompas?"  
"Because only squirrels can get the whole walnut out almost every single time," Wonka explained, "See how they tap it with their li'l knuckles to make sure it's not bad? Oh, look! I think that one's got a bad nut."  
Mike scanned the mass of squirrels for the one that had found a bad nut, but he couldn't tell them apart. He saw several nuts rolling down to a big hole in the centre of the room and assumed that that was where the bad nuts went.  
"Daddy," Satanic Kid said, "I want one of those squirrels. Get me one of those squirrels. I want one."  
Mike clamped his teeth down over his thumb to stop from laughing out loud; _finally_ this girl was going to get what she deserved.  
"Veruca, dear, you have many marvelous pets."  
_I'll bet she does, and who gave them to her?  
_"All I've got at home is two dogs and four cats and six bunny rabbits and two ponies and a silly old hamster! I _want_ a _squirrel_!"  
"All right, dear," Posh English Dude said calmly, "Daddy will get you a squirrel just as soon as he possibly can."  
"But I don't want any old squirrel," Satanic Kid continued, "I want a _trained _squirrel."  
Mr. Salt sighed, defeated, "Very well. Mr. Wonka, how much do you want for one of these squirrels? Name your price."  
"They're not for sale," Wonka said bluntly, putting a great emphasis on all the negatives in the sentence which made Mike squirm with glee, "She can't have one."  
Satanic Kid turned to her father, and Mike saw the anger flare in her eyes, "Daddy!"  
Mr. Salt hesitated.  
"I'm sorry, darling," Wonka said, in a disturbingly accurate imitation of the Posh English Dude, "Mr. Wonka's being unreasonable."  
"If you won't get me a squirrel," Satanic Kid said conclusively, "I'll get one myself!"

Mike stood on his toes to get a better look over the fence, as Veruca hopped the gate and climbed down the stairs towards the squirrels.  
"Veruca!" Mr. Salt cried, "Come back here at once!"  
Mike stepped up onto the bottom rung of the fence and folded his arms over the top, preparing himself for what promised to be an entertaining show.  
Satanic Kid meandered around the middle of the room for a while, before spying a squirrel she liked. Walking confidently over, she reached out her arms, "I'll have _you_!"  
There was a ghostly pause…  
Suddenly, the squirrel squeaked and pounced on Veruca. The squirrels around her began to jump onto her. Mike gave a start and grabbed the fence to steady himself. Veruca was now pacing backwards, trying to shake off the scores of squirrels. Wonka pulled out a key-ring with hundreds of keys attached to it, and began to sieve through them one by one, "Nope…not that one…"  
Satanic Kid screamed as she was thrown to the ground.  
"Veruca!" her father cried out for her. Mike leaned forward and looked at the squirming, defenseless Veruca, his hatred for her morphing into fear.  
"There it is!" Wonka tried the key, "There it isn't …"  
"Daddy!" she screamed, "I want them to stop!"  
Mike wondered why Posh English Dude didn't just climb over the small gate; but then he realized he could ask himself the exact same question.  
Just as suddenly as they had begun, the deafening squeaks ceased. One of the squirrels climbed onto Satanic Kid's torso and rapped on her head with its paw.  
"What're they doing?" asked Scruffy.  
"They're testing to see if she's a bad nut," Wonka replied, then turned to see the squirrel give a single squeak, "Oh, my goodness. She is a bad nut, after all…"  
_Thought so.  
_The squirrels moved so quickly and fluently, it was almost as if they were one. They scooped up Veruca and began to scuttle over to the centre of the room.  
"Where are they taking her?" Mr. Salt asked.  
"Where all the other bad nuts go, to the garbage chute," Wonka answered.  
"But where does the chute go?"  
"To the incinerator."  
Mike could swear Wonka was smiling.  
"But don't worry, we only light it on Tuesdays."  
_Tuesday? Tuesday…what is it about Tuesday that's bothering me?  
_"Today _is_ Tuesday!"  
Wonka took a side-look at Mike, "Well, there's always the chance they decided not to light it today…"

Mike scrunched his eyes shut as Veruca screamed and was thrown into the chute. He looked slowly back round as the screams fizzled out. He felt very unclean, for some reason. Sucking someone up a tube was fine; turning them into a blueberry wasn't too bad. But this was a murder. Someone had actually died.  
The squirrels returned to their posts and got back to work like nothing extraordinary had just happened.  
Everyone turned to Wonka for an answer.  
"Now, she may be stuck in the chute just below the top," he said lamely, "If that's the case, all you have to do is reach in and pull her out."  
Having found the key (in timing that was too perfect for Mike to let go) Wonka unlocked the gate. Posh English Dude scaled the first flight of steps, but stopped dead in his tracks when the Oompa-Loompas appeared from nowhere to start singing.

_Veruca Salt, the little brute,  
__Has just gone down the garbage chute,  
__And she will meet as she descends,  
__A rather different set of friends._

_A rather different set of friends,  
__A rather different set of friends._

_A fish head, for example, cut,  
__This morning from a halibut,  
__An oyster from an oyster stew,  
__A steak that no one else would chew._

_And lots of other things as well,  
__Each with its rather horrid smell!  
__Horrid smell!_

_These are Veruca's new-found friends,  
__That she will meet as she descends,  
__These are Veruca's new-found friends!_

Mike had to admit, he was probably the most scared he'd ever been in his life. Though there hadn't been many scary moments in his life. One that stood out was the time his dad was pushing him on a swing, and he fell off right at the top. Another was when he had to get a filling at the dentist, but it was put in the wrong tooth so he had to have another one put in. And the most recent – and most painful – was when he had tried to ask Claire to the dance. Mike sighed and stared at his shoes; no matter how upbeat and cheerful this song (supposedly) was, he couldn't hide the fact that he was now more miserable than a pianist who'd had his fingers chopped off.

_Who went and spoilt her, who indeed?  
__Who pandered to her every need?  
__Who turned her into such a brat?  
__Who are the culprits, who did that?  
__The guilty ones, now this is sad,  
__Dear old mom…and loving…dad._

Bye-bye Posh English Dude...


	12. At The Factory: Calmness, Guilt, Anger

**Author's note:** I promised _The Weaving Wheel_ that I'd post this before Xmas, so I'm slaving!

**12**

Mike backed off quick when an Oompa-Loompa walked behind him to tug on Wonka's jacket and whisper something in his ear.  
"Oh really?" Wonka asked him, "Oh good!"  
Letting his hand fall to his side, Mike eyed them both suspiciously.  
"I've just been informed that the incinerator is broken, so there should be about three weeks of rotten garbage to break their fall!"  
"Well," said Mr Teavee sarcastically, "_That's_ good news."  
"Yeah."  
Mike shuddered; he had said it cheerfully, but he had turned away with a look of disappointment. Wonka was a freak, and Mike needed to prove it. His dad appeared creeped out by him too, but he was too weak-willed to speak up about it, and the Fraily family seemed to actually _respect _him.  
"Well," said Wonka, "Let's keep on truckin'."  
He led them over to a glass elevator and pushed a button which illuminated and gave a small 'ding'. The doors opened and they filed inside.  
"I don't know _why_ I didn't think of this earlier, the elevator is by far the most efficient way to get around the factory."  
Mike looked around and had a fairly clear idea of why Wonka had failed to mention this before; the elevator was conveniently _just_ big enough for the five of them…  
"There can't be this many floors," he said, looking at the thousands of buttons that decorated the walls.  
"How do _you_ know, Mr Smarty-Pants?" Wonka replied. Mike glared at him.  
_BECAUSE IT'S PHYSICALLY IMPOSSIBLE!  
_"And this isn't just an ordinary up and down elevator, by the way, this elevator can go sideways, longways, slantways and any other ways you can think of."  
_Sure…  
_"You just press any button, and whoosh, you're off!"  
Giggling, he pressed a button and they shot off. Mike was thrown sideways and had only two places to fall onto; a wall covered in buttons or Wonka. He risked the wall.

He regained his balance in the centre of the elevator which soared upwards then plummeted down, breaking to a juddered halt before sweeping away to the right. It steadied to a regular pace and Mike was able to look around him. It looked like they were outside. There was a huge mountain with a snow and mist backdrop. It reminded Mike of a level in one of his video games, except this was far, far more beautiful.  
It was eerie – even a little scary – to be standing in a glass-bottomed elevator looking down at a 200 foot drop. Mike was expecting any minute for Wonka to push another button to release a trap-door. He'd seen weirder things during his time at this freak of a factory.  
"Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Fudge Mountain!"  
_Typical_, thought Mike, _One of the most decent places here and he names it after chocolate.  
_He looked out and saw two Oompa-Loompas wave at them. He pulled a face and looked away. The mist glided past the glass walls like fingers being run through silk curtains. It was hypnotic. His mind wandered to other things. How Violet could still be with him. How Claire would have loved to be here. How he would so much like to be holding one of them in his arms as they drifted around the snowy-topped mountain. He shook his head rapidly to get rid of those thoughts, put the giddy sensation down to the elevator ride and brought his attention back to reality where they were re-entering the factory. To see some sheep. Pink sheep. Being sheared. Wonka had some serious explaining to do.  
"Oh!" he exclaimed. Mike, along with everyone else, turned to face him expectantly. He looked at Scruffy, then at Mike, then his face fell, "I'd rather not talk about this one."  
_Probably wise_, Mike thought as he saw a new sheep being brought in to be sheared. He turned round again and looked down to see two rows of beds, Oompa-Loompas dressed in red and white, and several familiar-looking, burnt out puppets being wheeled along on gurneys.  
"This is the Puppet Hospital and Burns Centre," Wonka announced, "It's…relatively new."

The elevator began to pick up speed again as they found themselves outside again. Mike's arm slammed into the wall, miraculously missing any buttons, when it stopped suddenly. His stomach gave a horrible lurch as they plunged down into a room labeled 'administration'. He felt a hand on his shoulder. It was his dad, he could tell. He was giving the same grip as he gave when he delivered his nightly Mike-it's-_really_-time-for-you-to-go-to-bed-now speech. Mike glanced back at him. He looked very ill. Fast movement had never agreed with him. When Mike had been seven, his parents had taken him to a theme park and he had complained that wanted to go on the biggest ride. After relentless moaning, his mother agreed to go on it with him, but Mike refused. He knew she would scream like a baby and embarrass him, so he tugged at his dad's jacket and yelled and stomped his foot until his dad gave up and went on it. Afterwards, Mike wished he had just taken his mum. His dad had been silent for the whole ride apart from the odd groan. Mike hadn't been able to enjoy himself at all; he thought his dad was being quite selfish.  
"Ah, the administration offices!"  
That was a load of crap, wasn't it? His dad wasn't being selfish at all, was he?  
"Hello, Doris!"  
Mike barely registered the Oompa-loompa in drag. He was thinking about all his parents had done for him. Doing things for him that they didn't want to do, putting up with his anger and sarcasm, feeding him, clothing him. And for what? Did Mike show the slightest bit of gratitude?  
Well…no…

The elevator lurched off again, snapping Mike out of his reverie. He staggered forward but managed to avoid hitting the wall again. They entered yet another room. This one looked slightly more interesting. Darkness except for regular explosions – just what Mike was used to. They fell again, but this time it was different. He'd been rocked about so much, he was getting used to it. It was even getting quite bland.  
He took the opportunity of the long silence to ask a question that had been bugging him since they had left the Chocolate Room: "Why is everything here completely pointless."  
Maybe he was competing with someone to give the dumbest reply known to man, or maybe he _was_ dumb. Whatever the reason, Scruffy gave the lamest explanation, "Candy doesn't have to have a point. That's why it's candy."  
"It's stupid!" Mike retorted, "Candy is a waste of time."  
"And computer games _aren't_ a waste of time?" Scruffy asked. Mike's eyebrows rocketed upwards; he wouldn't have thought Scruffy capable of such sarcasm. He was knocked speechless. His head screamed. Mike Teavee was without a witty reply to some kid who didn't seem rich enough to even own a TV.  
"Calm down, Charlie," Fraily McFrailson said, "His sort can be difficult, but you have to accept them for who they are, remember that."  
"What's up with him?" Mike's dad said about Wonka, giving Mike a diversion from landing his fist right into Fraily's stomach. Wonka had drifted off again. This prompted a query from Mike.  
"Don't you think he's out to get us?"  
"Excuse me?" Scruffy replied.  
"Oh, don't tell me you don't see it! What about the others! They didn't just disappear of their own accord."  
"Well, I think they did. If they had just listened to Mr. Wonka…"  
"OK, maybe if they'd listened they might have been safe, but don't you think Wonka _wants_ it this way?"  
"No."  
Mike sighed in frustration and turned to his dad, "You believe me, right?"  
"Well…"  
"You don't, do you? What about the boat! That only had enough room because The Blob…I mean, Augustus and Mrs Gloop were forced out! And this elevator wouldn't have fitted us all in before!"  
"I think it's just coincidence, Mike," Mr Teavee replied.  
Mike looked at Fraily and Scruffy who both nodded in agreement. He pouted, "Fine. Get yourself killed. See if I care. World's probably better off without you anyway."  
"Mike!" his father scolded. Mike paused.  
"Go to hell."  
Mike preoccupied himself by reading the names of the different rooms whilst doing the 'count from one to ten' exercise his anger management counselor had suggested to him. One room caught his eye: MONEY-MAKING ROOM. That was _sure_ to appeal to Scruffy! He'd be tempted, he'd suffer from it somehow, and Mike would be proved right! He span round.  
"I wanna pick a room," he said loudly to wake Wonka up. He looked dazed for a moment before quietly saying, "G'ahead."  
Mike started to turn back round but his attention was grabbed by another button: TELEVISION ROOM. _Too perfect…_

Mike pressed the button, a ghost of a smile playing on his lips. Wonka was in for it this time…

**A/n: **Television Room scene next up – the one I've been looking forward too. You're all probably reading this _after_ Christmas, but I'm writing it _before_ so…MERRY XMAS!


	13. At The Factory: Mike's Mammoth Mistake

**Author's note: **I watched this scene so many times in preparation for this chapter – and cos it's my fave scene! – whereupon I actually noticed a few things that I've never noticed before! Like, when Wonka says "for my very latest and greatest invention", Mike shoves Charlie out of the way – some classic, subtle, Burton-style characterisation there, although if Mike's hand had gone any lower, I think the film would have had to have been raised to a certificate 12A (PG-13, for all you American readers :D). There are a few other things, too, but I've decided to just include them in the chapter – you'll have to look out for them yourselves – but I just had to mention the shove, cos it's SO adorable for any Mike or Charlie fans!  
Anyway, this is obviously the last chapter where I have a nice script to cling onto for my safety-net – er, I mean, dialogue – but it's not the last that's "at the factory"; there are a couple more before we get back to Colorado, Daniel and Claire. And I'm dreading it…

**13**

The elevator doors opened with a pleasant 'ding'. Mike was fairly relieved to be let out. A set of doors in front of him opened to reveal…well, whiteness. That was the only word Mike could come up with to describe the room. White. The second word that sprung to his attention was 'bright'. Too bright. He squinted.  
"Here," Wonka instructed, taking a pair of weird, tinted goggles and very rapidly shoving them on his eyes, "Put these on quick and don't take them off whatever you do."  
Mike had already taken a pair from the other side of the doorframe and looked around whilst his dad and the Fraily family put theirs on. He felt like a bug.  
"This light could burn your eyeballs right out of your skulls, and we certainly don't want that, now, do we?"  
Wonka's sight flickered between Mike and Charlie for a bit, as though daring one of them to take their goggles off. Mike smiled a little; he wasn't going to give up _that _easily. Wonka turned away, slightly dejected, and began walking down a ramp. Mike followed a second later. Wonka began to talk about something, but the room was so damned echoey he couldn't hear a word. He needed to hear this; he needed to know what to do to prove himself right. He picked up his pace and overtook Scruffy, giving him a casual shove as he went. It felt good to let a little of his anger out. He hadn't been able to do so since the candy pumpkin in the Chocolate Room.  
He caught up with Wonka in enough time to hear him say two words he hated hearing in the same sentence: "Television Chocolate."  
Mike almost tripped.  
_Please, _he begged to no one in particular, _please tell me he's kidding…  
_"One day it occurred to me. Hey! If television can break up a photograph into millions and millions of tiny little pieces and send it whizzing through the air, and reassemble it on the other end, why can't I do the same thing with chocolate? Why can't I send a real bar of chocolate through the television all ready to be eaten?"

By now they had reached a solitary television set being watched by a solitary Oompa-Loompa.  
_Is that ALL he does?_ Mike pondered, _Just sits around and watches TV all day? What a geek!  
_A second voice piped up in Mike's head, one he'd hardly ever heard before: _You're criticizing yourself, you moron!  
__What? _Asked the first voice. Mike could sense that an inter-conscience battle was about to break out in his own mind, so he tried to shut himself off.  
_What do YOU do all day?  
_"Sounds impossible," Mr. Teavee said.  
"It _is_ impossible," Mike said, trying to ignore the heated argument in his brain.  
_I don't just watch TV – I play video games and make websites, too!  
_"You don't understand anything about science."  
_How does that make a difference?  
_"First off, there's a difference between wavesand particles."  
_Of course it makes a difference!  
_"Duh!"  
Mike was raising his own voice purely to drown out the ones in his head.  
_I really can't see how. No, he's every bit as sad as that Oompa-Loompa over there.  
_"Second," he tried to continue, "the amount of power it'd take to convert energy in matter…"  
_Shut up! Shut UP!  
_He was almost shouting, now, "…would be like nine atomic bombs!"  
"MUMBLER!" Wonka yelled, thrusting his face right into Mike's, "Seriously, I cannot understand a single word you're _saying_!"  
Mike glared at him, though in a way he was relieved; his loud shout had cut off the argument.

"Okey-dokey," Wonka said calmly, whilst Mike pulled a face which – had anyone been looking at him at the time – would clearly have said 'someone has just severely pissed me off; come near me or try to talk to me right now, and you shall die'. He sighed resignedly and tried to pay attention to what Wonka was saying. He still had a point to prove. He closed his eyes for just a second – so many things to think about; so much to remember; so many conflicting emotions.  
He thought about Augustus and Violet and Veruca.  
"I shall now send a bar of chocolate from one end of the room…"  
He thought about Claire and Daniel.  
"…to the other…"  
He thought about his obsession with TV and technology.  
"…by television."  
He wanted to curl up in a ball and cry.  
"Bring in the chocolate!"  
He followed the six Oompa-Loompas with his eyes as they brought out the massive bar of chocolate and placed it on the platform, but he was distracted. He was out in the real world, now, he realized. There were no extra lives anywhere. It wasn't possible to save at a good point and come back to it later. He was thirteen years old; he wasn't exactly a kid any more. He had to deal with problems as and when they came at him, and his biggest problem shouldn't be that 'Death Warriors VII' won't load on his machine. He promised himself that the second he got out of this damn factory – if he _ever_ got out of this damn factory – he would sort his life out. Properly.

But first thing was first: let Wonka get his comeuppance.

"It's gotta be real big," he was explaining. Mike looked up, "'Cos you know how on TV you can film a regular-sized man and he comes out looking this tall?" he held up his thumb and index finger a few inches apart, "Same basic principle."  
He hit a big red button and the chocolate started to elevate. Mike watched in disbelief, his mouth slightly open, his eyes as wide as they would go. He couldn't see strings anywhere…but it _had_ to be a hoax, right? Up and up the candy went, higher and higher. The glass cylinder closed around it. Lights flared, cameras moved into position. Still the candy bar stayed suspended in mid-air.  
_This defies all logic – he's breaking the laws of physics!  
_Even with the goggles on, the flash was bright enough to leave him with little dark spots in front of his eyes.  
"It's gone!" Scruffy shouted.  
Mike looked around frantically; objects didn't just disappear like that!  
"Told ya!" Wonka said. He was talking to Scruffy, but Mike was pretty sure it was aimed more at him, "That bar of chocolate is now rushing through the air above our heads in a million tiny little pieces. Come over here! Come on!"

Mike, along with the others, ran over to the television set. He surprised himself with how quickly he could run. He didn't exercise often; his excuse was that he barely ate. Thinking about it, that was probably why he felt so dizzy.  
He stared intently at the screen, almost daring the chocolate bar to appear (although he knew it was impossible). So many of the theories that Mike had grown up with had been shot down in one day by one man; he was determined to be right about _something_. After all, it was _him_ – Mike Teavee was _never_ wrong.  
"Watch the screen!"  
Mike didn't even blink.  
"Here it comes...oh, look!"  
There it was. A little fuzzy, but it was there. A candy bar.  
_It's a trick! It's gotta be!  
_Wonka poked Mike's arm, "Take it!"  
"It's just a picture on a screen," he said, almost determinedly.  
Wonka tutted, "Scaredy-cat! _You _take it," he repeated to Scruffy. He hesitated – the first sensible thing he'd done for the whole tour.  
"Go on! Just reach out and grab it."  
After a short pause, he stepped forward and, to Mike's total shock and horror, plunged his hand through the screen of the television and lifted the candy bar from its rut. Mike felt a mixture of incredulity and anger as Scruffy stood there, just holding it.  
"Holy buckets…" Fraily McFrailson said; Mike didn't even speculate on what the hell he was on about.  
"Eat it," Wonka instructed, "Go on! It'll be delicious." Scruffy started to open the wrapper, "It's the same bar; it's just gotten a little smaller on the journey, that's all."  
Mike felt sick for a number of reasons. The top one was probably that none of this was happening to him. If it was, he could try to find a fault in it somewhere. _Why_ had he refused to take the candy from the screen?  
"It's great!" Scruffy said, chewing on the chocolate.  
"It's a miracle," his grandfather whispered.  
Mike had to admit, if what he was seeing was genuine…it was pretty cool. But he was still pissed off that he wasn't a part of it. After all, his surname _was_ 'Teavee'; surely this was a match made in heaven?  
"So, imagine," Wonka said, walking round to the Oompa-Loompa and indicating to it, "you're sitting at home watching television, and suddenly a commercial will flash onto the screen. And a voice will say: 'Wonka's chocolates are the best in the world. If you don't believe us, try one for yourself.' And you simply reach out...and take it!"  
Mike dipped his head a little. Although he liked what he saw, he still had the concentration of a hamster.  
"So can you send other things?" his dad asked, "Say, like, breakfast cereal?"  
"Do you even know what breakfast cereal is made of?" Wonka replied, "It's those little curly wooden shavings that you find in pencil sharpeners."  
_Ha! I knew it!  
_Scruffy piped up, "But could you send it by television if you wanted to?"  
"Course I could."  
Bam.  
A golden opportunity to prove Wonka was a nutcase.  
"What about people?" Mike asked, mock-casually.  
"Why would I wanna send a person, they don't taste very good at all."

Mike smiled for a nano-second. He had seen mutilation, he had seen murder, he had seen concrete theories being shattered, he had seen slavery, he had seen trained un-trainable animals, he had seen lies, and he had certainly seen stupidity, even from himself. But this was one occasion on which he wasn't going to let it go or screw it up.  
"Don't you realize what you've invented?" he ranted, "It's a _teleporter_! It's the most important invention in the history of the world! And all you think about is _chocolate_."  
His flow was interrupted by his father, as per usual, who turned round to coolly say, "Calm down, Mike, I think Mr. Wonka knows what he's talking about."  
If Mike hated anything more than chocolate, or Wonka, or Oompa-Loompas, or being called dumb, or losing a life, or power failures, or retards, or music homework, or people getting in his way, or his hair not spiking up, or imbeciles, or wearing any colour except black or red, or being sent to bed before midnight, it was his father telling him to "calm down". His anger swelled.  
"No he _doesn't_! He has no _idea_!"  
His anger intensified.  
"You think he's a _genius_ but he's an _idiot_!"  
His point was lost.  
There was only one way he could recover. He looked over at the teleporter that a few short minutes ago had contained a humungous candy bar.  
"But I'm not…"

He dashed off quickly; he knew his dad would try to stop him. He was just that bit too quick and he managed to slip through his fingers. He jumped stylishly over the Oompa-Loompa, landed, stumbled a little but managed to regain himself, knocked two of the damned irritating Oompa-Loompas out of the way…  
"Hey, li'l boy?" Wonka called.  
_'Li'l boy' has a name…  
_He continued to run, ducking a camera as he went.  
"Don't push my button!"  
_Try and stop me!  
_He pelted over to the panel and slammed his palm down on the shiny, red button. It was at this point he realised that he hadn't said anything in his preamble to this exhibition. He hadn't mentioned anything about Wonka being a deranged psychopath, or the attempted murders, or the successful murders, or the coincidences that were just _too_ coincidental. He had, in a fit of rage and foolishness, just sentenced himself to being the fourth of Wonka's victims. But there was no turning back now. He had already leapt from the control panel to the transporter's platform, which was slowly rising. His dad ran round for no reason Mike could fathom – if he was going to try to save Mike, he was going to have to get a hell of a lot closer than that.  
The coward.

Lights flared.  
Mike's feet lifted from the ground. He looked down at them in surprise. Even though the glass tube was enclosing him, he felt freer than he'd ever felt in his life. He looked back up, a look of superiority all over his face. He was better than every other person in that room. He really _was_. And this new height proved it in a weird, metaphorical way. The strange flying sensation finally tipped him off-balance and he waved his arms in an attempt to right himself. Half of him was enjoying the wild movements that were forced upon him; the other half longed for the control he thrived on. Eventually he regained that control, and was able to move his own body again. He decided to have some fun. After all, from the length of time it took to transport that chocolate bar, it looked like he had some time to kill. He threw out some air guitar movements, then some disco poses, waved gleefully at his dad – who looked the most scared Mike had ever seen him – and finally, as the glass tube made contact with the platform, he flung a funky, John Travolta-style finishing pose.  
Lights flared.  
Darkness caved in.

**A/n: **I've also just noticed that in the shot of Mike's upper body, just after his feet have lifted off the platform, you can actually see the shape of the harness under his t-shirt (where it has ridden up a bit and creased). I couldn't exactly put that in the chapter, cos it's more of a goof than a plot-line.  
One more thing (the last, I swear) loads of people have probably already noticed, but I hadn't – in the scene where Mike gets interviewed, his pyjamas show yet another picture of a skull, this time with some sort of bullet or stab wound to the head that's spewing blood quite violently. I'm positive that Mike alone made this film a PG rather than a U, lol.


	14. At The Factory: Musings of a Pixelperson

**Author's note: **I'm really sorry about the delay! I've had a stressful couple of months.I thought I'd be different for this chapter – I've written it entirely in first-person from Mike's PoV. Oh, and I lied in the last chapter #scolds self# - the _next_ chapter is actually the last where I have scripted dialogue prepared for me. After that, I'm on my own…eep.

**14**

If you've never had the misfortune to be split into a million tiny pieces and hurled from one end of a room to be processed into a TV at the other end, I can tell you it's not a pleasant experience. If you thought I hated Wonka in the previous few hours of my life, boy, that was _nothing_ to what I was feeling at that moment. I swear, if I'd had a gun I would have taken aim at him and fired. I wouldn't have missed, because I had a really clear view of the entire room. Literally. The _entire_ room. What with my eyes being pixelated and spread around the place.  
Y'know when people talk about their exciting-life-changing-yet-somehow-really-boring experience, and they say "time stood still"? Well…time stood still.  
Honestly.  
OK, maybe it didn't "stand still", but it was so fucking slow, it may as well have stopped altogether. It felt like I was in the air for about 7 months, though it couldn't have been more than two or three minutes – enough time for my dad to rejoin the group that had huddled round the TV set (and from the looks of it, get kinda pissed off at Wonka) at any rate.  
Anyway, I'm jumping ahead a little; I'll get back to the television bit later.

So, I'm in the air for what feels like 7 months, which obviously gives me time to properly think. Now, I _know _I should have been thinking about important stuff (my situation and how I'll get out of it, how the other unfortunate tour members are doing, Claire, et cetera) but there's a tiny little portion of my brain that's thoughts are making themselves heard above all others, and that thought is: "MONSTER TRUCKS!"  
No joke.  
For a month (6 to 7 seconds?) that's all I could think about.  
But then the sensible part of my brain came to the rescue. The downside of this is that the sensible part tends to ask too many questions in quick succession. This time was no different.  
Are you ever going to get your feet back on the ground again? (Yeah, my brain speaks to me in third person – one of the many curses of being a child prodigy is that I can be a little too philosophical at times.) Did you stop to think about the consequences? Why didn't you realise you would get shrunk? Will you think of some way to reverse the action? If you don't, what will you do? What will Claire think? What will Daniel think? How will your parents feel? How will Wonka feel? What if Scruffy wins the special prize? Could you cope if someone actually beat you? What the hell are you going to do?  
And, frankly, I couldn't answer a single one of these questions.  
That scared me.  
I'm usually never stuck for an answer, because I always have good old logic to fall back on. But where had there ever been an ounce of logic in that factory? Nowhere! Absolutely nowhere! I mean, a chocolate waterfall? Humans turning into blueberries? Killer squirrels? None of it makes any sense and yet, somehow, they happened. To say I was frightened at that point is a gross understatement. It wasn't so much that I was probably about to be horribly mutilated, it was more that I wasn't right. Yup, you heard. Mike Teavee was wrong about something. And something major. Something potentially life-altering. Why? Why did it have to be _then_ that I listened to my heart instead of my head? My heart's _never _right!

Oh, God.  
Sudden thought.  
Songs.  
They'd all had one. The Blob, Possessed Junior, Satantic Kid. A part of me hoped my own song – assuming I was getting one – was going on right then to avoid the humiliation, but another part of me wanted to hear what those creepy Oompa-Loompas thought of me.

By now I was, like, half-way across the room. Well, most of me was. Some bits were slightly ahead, the rest was a little behind, but most of me was roughly half-way across the room. And it was roughly half-way across the room that I started to feel MEGA depressed. I'm talking suicidal. I'm not the _most _patient boy in the world, as you have probably gathered, and making me go through what-felt-like-7-months of floating through nothingness didn't help my impatience. Plus I kept thinking about what would happen to me and what I could do about it and if I'd ever be normal again. I mean, I go around calling people freaks _all_ the time, but let's face it: shrinking to a tenth of your original height could very well, possibly, maybe be considered a little freakish. I'd be damn lucky to keep the one friend I already have, let alone make new ones. And my love-life would be even worse (which is quite an achievement considering it was non-existent as it was).  
Maybe I would now stand a chance with Possessed Jr; at least we'd both be physically mutated. But, shallow as it may sound, I _really_ didn't want to go out with a human blueberry. Still don't. Satanic Kid had pretty much written herself off with her actions and her personality and her greed and her dad… The only redeeming girl who had ever shown an interest in me was…Claire. A subject I had avoided for long enough. The dance was soon – only three weeks after I got out of the factory – and I still didn't have a date to take. Claire's brutal rejection rang clear in my ears (which were quite a distance behind my feet– a fact I tried to ignore). I suddenly realised: she had found someone else. I'd always _known_ that, I just hadn't _really_ known that. It hit me like a brick wall. And being hit by a brick wall while you're floating several feet above ground is unsettling, to say the least.  
I became disorientated. So many clashing thoughts were clouding my brain. I really wanted to throw up, but in my current condition it wasn't possible.  
I was getting close to the TV set now. Any minute now I'd be back on solid ground.  
I'd be in one piece.  
I'd be shrunk.  
I'd be kicked off the tour.  
I'd be out of the factory.

I'd be struggling not to cry.


	15. At The Factory: The most important thing

**Author's note: **I've been naughtily putting this off because it's the last chapter I have with pre-prepared dialogue and, to put it simply and honestly, I'm scared! Please be nice to Claire! She's not really a Mary-Sue – she is absolutely nothing like me apart from the fact that she's a girl. Anyway, I'm jumping ahead. Time for chapter 15. Eep…

**15**

"There he is!"  
"Mike?"  
Mike looked around, very disorientated; he barely registered the rocking guitars in the background.

_The most important thing_

Mike span round to come face-to-face with one of those midget Oompa-Loompas. Well, it was more like face-to-shoulder…and it certainly wasn't a midget compared to Mike…

_That we've ever learned_

The newsreader Oompa-Loompa gave a small nod in Mike's direction. Having learnt not to trust Oompa-Loompas, he backed away quickly…straight into a cooking channel.

_The most important thing we've learned,  
__As far as children are concerned_

He acted quickly to avoid a madly slamming mallet (though the huge lump of meat it was pummelling scared him more). A small click and a bout of fuzziness later and Mike found himself cornered by two massive Rock 'Em Sock 'Em robots.

_Is never, never let them near  
__A television set_

He dodged as best he could. He tried to call out to his dad, but something strange had happened to his vocal chords – he just couldn't yell. It felt unnatural.

_Or better still just don't install,  
__The idiotic thing at all_

Another click and he appeared in a bathtub. He didn't dare move; he stayed completely motionless, like a spider that's just been spotted. A huge pair of legs joined him in the tub, and he looked around to realise for the first time that everything – including himself – was in black and white. The whole thing felt uncomfortably familiar.  
"Uh oh," he muttered to himself.  
It was just his luck that he would wind up in the middle of his favourite scene from his favourite film. He knew right then and there that he would never watch _Phsycho_ again. But knowing the film inside-out had its benefits – he looked up just in time to see the shower turn on, just as he predicted.  
_Click!  
_Now he seemed to be on some demented, Oompa-Loompa-infected version of MTV. He ran around the stage, narrowly avoiding guitarists and drummers everywhere.

_It rots the senses in the head_

He dashed past a microphone stand.

_It kills imagination dead_

He jumped over a cable.

_It clogs and clutters up the mind_

He paused – what where they singing? It rots the senses in the head… it kills imagination dead… it clogs and clutters up the mind…? Mike felt the injustice bubble up inside him. If television really 'rots the senses' and 'clogs and clutters up the mind' then how the hell was he the smartest kid at his school? OK, maybe that came at a sacrifice of having little or no friends…no social life…severe anger issues…

_It makes a child so dull and blind_

He had no idea how he ended up on the keyboard, nor did he care.

_He can no longer understand,  
__A fairytale in fairyland_

He looked around and came to the conclusion that, if what he was experiencing was a 'fairytale in fairyland', then _anyone_ would find it unbelievable if _they_ were thrown into the middle of it! He just had time to back away from the approaching hand…

_His brain becomes as soft as cheese_

…but he wasn't quite fast enough. He was flung through the air, giving a scream that came out as a squeak; there was another price he had to pay for shrinking himself.

_His thinking powers rust and freeze_

He landed with a clang onto a cymbal, which he promptly started to slide down. He dug his nails into it, but could do nothing until he was hanging off the edge. He gripped the side, judging the distance from there to the floor, and deciding he'd probably be better off if he just stayed the hell still.

_He cannot think_

He braced himself as he saw the drumstick come hurtling towards him

_He only sees_

He clawed fruitlessly at the air in case something came along he could grip onto. He saw those damn drumsticks fly past him. His speed gradually got slower and slower until he came to a complete stop. For a split-second he felt an immense relief, until he realised he was falling…backwards. He followed the path of the confetti that was falling around him. He just had time to glimpse some hippy guitarists as they sang about him in much the same way as Veruca.

_Regarding little Mike Teavee_

Mike was outraged. _Try telling me this wasn't planned, h_e screamed inwardly.

_We very much regret that we_

MTV again – he ducked the guitar.

_Shall simply have to wait and see_

_Physcho_ again – he dodged the knife as it stabbed spasmodically.

_We very much regret that we,  
__Shall simply have to wait and see,  
__If we can get him back his height_

Rock 'Em Sock 'Em robots again – placed right in the middle, this time, he sustained two painful blows before being knocked off his feet.

_But if we can't_

Cooking show again – there was really nothing he could do, or had the energy to do, to stop himself from being tossed around in the frying pan.  
Newsreader again – Mike simply gave up. He rolled to a stop and waited for the climax of the song.

_It serves him right._

He couldn't say he hadn't been expecting the squashing from the Oompa-Loompa's papers, but that didn't make it any less painful. He didn't think there was one square inch of him that didn't ache from some sort of injury.  
He rubbed the back of his sore head and stretched out his legs as he uttered the only words he could think of:

"Help me…"


	16. At The Factory: Mini Mike

**Author's note: **OK, last chapter with pre-prepared dialogue…eep…I say that a lot, don't I? Ah well, here we go. The consequences of Mike's actions catch up on him.

**16**

"_Help me!_" Mike yelled (squeaked) a bit more urgently. He felt a weird pressure at the nape of his neck and flung his hands over his head protectively, just in case it was another deranged Oompa-Loompa.  
He had never been so pleased to see his dad.  
"Oh thank heavens," Mike turned to look at Wonka who was speaking very forcedly and also leaning away slightly, "He's completely unharmed."  
"Unharmed?" Mr Teavee asked incredulously, saving Mike the bother, "What are you talking about?"  
He turned to look at his dad, expecting a sympathetic face and an assurance that it would all be OK. It never came. He only received a look of utmost fear before he was brought down to rest in his father's palm.  
_Well_, Mike thought, _time for Plan B…  
_"Just put me back through the other way!"  
He cringed inwardly at his embarrassing, squeaky voice, but kept a cool and strong persona on the outside – despite seeing Scruffy visibly laugh at him. Well, he thought he saw Scruffy laugh at him. It was possibly – in fact, probably – a trick his mind was playing on him. And it was possible – in fact, almost certain – that his mind would keep playing those tricks until he got himself back to normal. If he ever did.  
"There is no other way," Wonka explained, almost gently.  
Mike opened his mouth to scream "WHAT", but decided that squeaking wasn't the best plan of action here.  
Wonka continued, not quite so gently, "It's tele_vision_, not tele_phone_. There's quite a difference."  
Then, in a tone that Mike's father so rarely used it actually scared Mike a little to hear him speak that way, "And what exactly do you propose to do about it?"  
"I don't know," Wonka stated.  
Mike gave a start. Had he been wrong about Wonka? All the other kids had had some kind of back-up plan to put them back to how they were – why didn't he? Was it because everything that had happened truly was a coincidence? Or did Wonka not expect Mike to fall for it? Or was it because he just didn't like Mike? Whatever the reason, he hoped a solution was thought of soon – he couldn't go back home in the condition he was in. he just _couldn't_.  
Although…

Being poked in a vat of chocolate…being squeezed of juice…landing in a pile of garbage…  
Mike could only assume his fate would be of a similar calibre. And that wasn't good. Maybe it wasn't so bad being shrunk. After all, his parents certainly wouldn't let him go out in that state. Not to go to boring school, or boring church, or the boring shopping mall. No, he would just stay at home all day and watch television. At least that privilege had not been denied him. So long as he could face a television after what it just did to him.  
No. Everything would be alright.  
"But young men are extremely springy, they stretch like mad."  
Wonka gasped as though a eureka-style idea had just hit him.  
_Oh God, here we go…  
_"Let's go put him in the taffy puller!"  
_Taffy puller…?  
_"Taffy puller?"  
Not being well-versed in the ways and means of candy, Mike didn't know what a taffy-puller was exactly, although he had a fair idea, and his father's tone reinforced that theory.  
"Hey, that was my idea," Wonka said childishly. Mike narrowed his eyes, although no one could see it through those damn goggles.  
"Boy is he gonna be skinny," Wonka said (struggling to keep a smirk off his face, Mike noted), "Yeah…" Mike looked at his dad for some sort of explanation, but he looked just as bemused as Mike felt, "Taffy puller…"  
There was a buzzing silence. Mike swore he could actually feel atoms brushing past him. Wonka finally turned to the Oompa-Loompa on the white chair.  
"I want you to take Mr Teavee and his…"  
He looked over at Mike who glared at him sharply.  
_Careful, freak…  
_"…li'l…boy…" he stuttered, "Up to the taffy-puller, kay? Stretch him out!"  
There was a short pause where, presumably, the Oompa-Loompa gave some sort of signal to his dad. At a clear loss of ideas for anything else to do, he simply turned, Mike in hand, and followed the midget out of the room. The last Mike saw of Wonka that day was jumping away from him with a scared gasp. That made Mike feel a bit better; even if he was tiny and dangling precariously from his father's fingers, he still imposed some sort of fear in Wonka. It was a small boon, but a satisfactory one.  
"On with the tour?" he heard Wonka's voice fade away as his father strode down the corridor, apparently having surprising difficulty keeping up with the Oompa-Loompa in front of him.  
Mike swallowed as he realised something: it was all over. His time at the factory had come to an end.

He was a loser.


	17. At The Factory: Massive Mike

**Author's note: **I actually cringed at this chapter, and I came to the conclusion that I never EVER want to be stretched in a taffy puller.

**17**

Mr Teavee lost count of the number of times Mike swore or cursed; if he'd kept going, he would have known it amounted to exactly eight hundred and forty seven times. Mr Teavee wasn't sick enough to count how many times Mike screamed in agony; if he had, he would have known it was too many times too count.

A number of thoughts were swimming through Mike's brain, but he didn't realise that. The only thought that was properly registering was "OH MY GOD, I'M GOING TO DIE FROM THE PAIN!". He caught a glimpse of the Oompa-Loompa who was manning the controls of the contraption, and saw a distinct gleam of joy in his eyes. He knew he wasn't seeing things – it was the exact same glare Mike gave every time he successfully bullied someone's lunch money away from them. It made him feel sick and slightly abashed that it was being reciprocated on him – he would certainly think twice if he saw Richie King with a handful of change clenched in his fist.  
Then something hit him – something that probably should have hit him days ago: he was never, _ever_ going to have a normal life. He wouldn't be able to achieve any real success, because the press would always link it back to His Visit To The Chocolate Factory. He'd be recognised and hunted down in the streets; hoards of weirdos running up to him to say 'Hey, you're that guy who went to Wonka's factory!' rather than what he would prefer, such as 'Hey, you're that guy who found the ultimate cure for malaria!' or 'Hey, you're that guy who bought out Microsoft!' or (to a lesser extent) 'Hey, you're that guy in that really famous basketball team!'.

His thoughts were interrupted by a shot of searing white-hot pain through his sides and limbs. His skin felt like it was being stretched to the point of being ripped open. His face contorted into a pained grimace as he felt his entire body be mutated out of all proportion. He could hear his bones cracking under the pressure, his organs were being restricted, his pulse echoed in his ears and his throat felt hot and choked up. He tried to scream but no sound came – his vocal chords had been completely mangled. He tried to yell "Stop! Stop!" but the midgets just kept pulling. He felt burning tears roll down his face, and he was shaking beyond control. He forced silent screams until he managed to give a feeble squeak. His father, apparently unable to look at the spectacle in front of him before now, suddenly looked up and saw his son's state.  
"Stop!" he yelled at the Oompa-Loompas, "Stop it, now! He's in pain, stop!"  
Still, they kept going, as if urged onward by some invisible voice.  
"STOP!" Mr Teavee shouted again, starting to shake almost as much as Mike, "STOP IT! You're gonna kill him!"  
This didn't stop the Oompa-Loompas. In fact, it seemed to spur them on.  
"Please, stop it!" Mike mouthed soundlessly.  
He saw the shadow of his father as he grabbed the Oompa-Loompa controlling the taffy-puller and threw him across the room, then started to untie Mike from the machine. Mike had never been more grateful for anything in his life; his whole body felt heavy and limp, and if he hadn't known he was thinking and breathing, he would have presumed he had died.  
_Woah,_ he thought to himself, _I nearly died…_

"Are you OK?" Mr Teavee asked, helping Mike into a sitting position.  
"Yes," Mike said very quietly.  
"Come on, we're leaving. I should have listened to you earlier – I think Mr Wonka probably _was_ out to get you."  
"It's not a problem," Mike tried to say, but it was squeaky and incoherent.  
"Huh?" his father asked.  
Mike looked down and shook his head dismissively.  
"Can't you talk?"  
Mike shook his head again, bringing it back up to look his father in the eye. He could see Mr Teavee searching for something to say, but being withheld by his dismay.  
"Umm…can you walk?" he asked hesitantly. Mike got off the machine and attempted to stand; he was a little unstable on his significantly thinner feet and weak legs, but he could do it, and he even walked a few steps, though it took a great deal of energy.  
"I can do it," he whispered, looking down at his dad.  
Looking _down_?  
Mike did a double take.  
Yes, his father was actually well below his eye line, with a shocked, incredulous expression.  
"Mike, you're…you're…"  
"Stretched," Mike finished. Tears glistened in both their eyes as they left the room silently.

They walked in an unsteady silence, Mr Teavee helping Mike down the stairs as he kept one hand clamped to the wall to keep his balance. They were very close to the door they had entered (Mike saw that a few of the burnt-out puppets were yet to be taken to the Puppet Hospital and Burns Centre) when he heard a huffy, German voice echo down the corridor. Mike grabbed his dad by the jacket and pulled him back around the corner, out of sight.  
"Ow! Mike, do you mind?" his father complained.  
"Shh!" Mike shushed him in a whisper, "I don't wanna be seen like this!"  
"There's a whole load of reporters outside, and you're worried about people seeing you?"  
Mike grimaced; frankly, he'd been refusing to think about that. Everyone would see him. Literally, _everyone_. People across the world would be watching as the "lucky" winners left their tour. His teachers would have a field day. Daniel would finally have some ammo to fire at Mike the way he had been doing for the last four years of their friendship. And Claire…Mike didn't want to think about it.  
The plump woman and her not-so-little boy waddled in the direction of Mike and his dad, the former arguing very loudly in German. Mike translated as she spoke.  
"Augustus, I cannot believe your greediness! Mr. Wonka was telling you to stop, so why didn't you?"  
"I was hungry," Augustus replied, "How do you expect me to keep away from fresh chocolate?"  
"Well, from now on you will have no chocolate, fresh or not!"  
"What? That's not _banana_!"  
Mike furrowed his eyebrows in confusion before he realised he'd mistranslated; he had probably said 'that's not _fair_'. Mike went to scold himself for the mistake, but stopped with the justification that he had just had a very traumatic experience and was allowed to make the odd mistake in translating a foreign language.  
Mike remained hidden as Possessed Jr. tumbled past them with her equally possessed mother. She was still blue and abnormally supple, but she was basically back to normal. Mike envied the brightness in her tone as she completed her acrobatics down the stairs and said: "Look, Mother, I'm much more flexible now!"  
Expecting Mrs Possessed to be pleased at her daughter's new-found skill, Mike was shocked to hear her say: "Yes. But you're blue."  
"There's your jacket," Mr Teavee said, pointing over at a black coat that looked like it had been washed, dried, ironed and hung up.  
"Nothing but the best here, huh…" Mike muttered sarcastically. Even Mr Teavee rolled his eyes in agreement as he plucked the coat from its hanger.

They waited for the Salt duo to leave – completely covered in trash – before starting to make their way to the door. Mike suddenly stopped in his tracks, deciding on the spot that he would rather live for eternity in a chocolate factory than to face the world in his condition. Mr Teavee, however, kept going, not noticing his son's disappearance until he got to the door. He looked back at Mike.  
"I'm not going out there!" he whispered urgently with huge arm gestures. Mr Teavee looked at his towering son, stroked the hem of the relatively tiny jacket and back up at Mike.  
"You have to," he said gently, "Come on."  
He looked up to see the great glass elevator hanging overhead with a very smug-looking Wonka in it.  
"There's Mr Wonka," Mr Teavee stated.  
"So?" Mike squeaked.  
Mr Teavee shrugged, "Be a shame to let him think he's won."  
Mike was taken aback – his father had never consented competition, it had always been the issue that separated them. It was a mark of how much he obviously wanted Mike to walk out with his head held high. Well, his head _would _be held very high whether he liked it or not.  
He took a deep breath and joined his father at the door, walking shakily but determinedly down the stairs. He was freezing; the snow was cold, and he was bare-skinned in places. But still he walked on. He could see cameras flashing, reporters nudging each other, there was a buzz as citizens crowded the streets for the Lucky Winners' first words.  
He knew not one of them – not Augustus, not Violet, not Veruca, not himself – would have a kind word to say.  
Mike could think of plenty of other words to say, though.


	18. After the Factory: Aftermath

**Author's note: **Oh my word, an update! Bet you all thought this fic had died, heh. Sorry for the mega-delay, but I've been ridiculously busy with college, hospital and music stuff. My sincerest apologies to all of you. Now, let's see if I can remember what the hell this fic is supposed to be about…

**18**

When Mike got home, he shut himself away in his room and refused to see anyone. His mother brought him meals every day but, although she could easily have opened the door, past experience with her son's behaviour told her not to, and she always ended up just leaving the food outside his door. Then she'd come by with the next meal to find the previous one untouched. Finally, after about a week, Mike poked his head out of his room to tell his parents to leave him well alone.  
"Mike, you can't live in your room forever," his mother said calmly.  
"Yes I can," Mike replied glumly – he couldn't see how his life could ever return to normal, "I can go without food and stuff…don't need it…"  
Maybe he could have got away with that statement if his stomach hadn't decided to rumble very loudly right at that moment.  
"Mike," his father said, "you _must_ eat. You're a growing boy."  
That was the mistake.  
"I'm a _what_?" Mike snapped. Mr. Teavee instantly regretted using that particular phrase. Of course the last thing Mike wanted to hear right now was that he was going to get even _taller_.  
"I…I just meant…" Mr Teavee stammered helplessly.  
"Get bent." Mike growled and slammed the door in their faces.

There was a tense pause as the slam resonated through the silent house.  
You had to say that, didn't you?" Mrs Teavee snapped at her husband.  
"It just slipped out, OK? Sorry!" Mr Teavee retorted, not sounding entirely sorry.  
"You _know_ he's in a delicate state!"  
"It was just an expression – I've used it loads of times before!"  
"But that was back when he was under average height for his age! What were you thinking?"  
"I was thinking maybe one of us had to step in and do something."  
"What's that supposed to mean?"  
"Nothing!"  
"You're calling me a bad mother!" her voice was rising in both pitch and volume.  
"Why? Why do you have to read so much into everything I say?"  
"I don't!"  
"Shut UP!" Mike yelled from inside his room, but it would have gone unnoticed in the heated argument even if his voice wasn't quieter than a mouse's. He buried his head in his pillow and let his tears soak it through.  
_Why the hell are you crying, you wuss?_ Said the part of his mind that always had to keep up an unbreakable appearance, y_ou're Mike Teavee; you don't cry!  
__Oh, shut up, _said the part that wanted to just give up, _he's tired and emotional, just let him vent.  
__But he's being a baby! He needs to be strong right now.  
_"But I cant!" Mike whispered.  
_You hear that? _Said his gentler side, _after what that deranged chocolate dude did to him, doesn't anyone deserve to cry?  
_Mike pressed the pillow further into his face so he struggled to breathe, feeling the relief as his lungs started to ache and his eyes stung, distracting his attention away from the pain of the stretching.  
When he was just about to pass out, he threw the pillow to one side and gasped in the oxygen. He fumbled around on his cluttered bedside table until he found his cell phone. He dialled in a number and held it to his flattened ear.  
"I need a doctor," he whispered as loud as he could as soon as the recipient picked up.  
"OK, what seems to be the problem?" asked the hospital receptionist on the other end.  
Mike paused, realising how ridiculous this was about to sound, "I was stretched on a taffy puller and now I'm three times taller than I was and I can't walk or talk properly."  
There was another pause on the other end of the line.  
"I'm sorry," the reply eventually came, "I didn't quite catch that. Can you speak up?"  
"No, I can't!" Mike squeaked angrily, "That's the problem! That's why I need a fucking doctor!"  
"I'm sorry, I still didn't quite catch that."  
"Oh, forget it."  
Mike flung the phone at the wall and it shattered.  
He glanced at himself in the mirror, his parents' argument still penetrating the air. He suddenly felt strange. Not upset or angry, nor happy, but not confused, either. Just a feeling of acceptance.  
_I've changed._

**A/n: **I wrote this quite quickly, just to post SOMETHING, so sorry if it sucks.


End file.
